


Under the Cover of Darkness

by randomlyimagine



Series: Working on from Then to Now [1]
Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Fic is already completely written and on my hard drive, Fix-It, Happy Ending, In which I make Obi-Wan's life way too interesting, Luke and Mara end up getting sucked back to the Clone Wars, Multi, No knowledge of Legends/the EU necessary, Partial Mind Control, Power Dynamics, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Undercover, Undercover as Sith, en media res, except, some of the power dynamics are being faked and some of them are real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-06-22 16:04:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 57,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15585591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomlyimagine/pseuds/randomlyimagine
Summary: The Inquisitor slammed his fists against the door of his cell again. “Pathetic. I congratulate you on not visibly panicking, but surely you’re not so stupid as to—“Luke grimaced. Time to commit, or time to wait and watch their captor’s reaction?“—not notice that you’ve capturedLuke Skywalker,whom we’ve managed toTurn—”“I’m sorry, who?” Maybe Obi-Wan Kenobi’s look could have been drier, but Luke kind of doubted it.Being sent back in time, getting to see the Old Jedi Order, Ben, his Father…it was an opportunity Luke had never dreamed he’d have. If only he and Mara hadn’t been pulled back in the middle of a mission where they were undercover as Sith.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Huge, huge shoutout to @SapphiraBlue for being my wonderful beta and enthusiastic cheerleader. Without them, I don't know that this fic would ever have been finished.
> 
> **Lowdown on Mara Jade for people not familiar with Legends:** Mara Jade is basically if Black Widow was in Star Wars, tbh. She was kidnapped by the Emperor as a toddler, raised to be his personal Force-sensitive assassin, but was only half-trained and never used the Dark Side. He had a psychic bond with her and his last act was to order her to kill Luke and avenge him, she didn't, and became a smuggler. She and Luke met, she hated him, they were forced to work each other, became friends, ten years later they realized they were in love and got married. And Luke gave her his father's lightsaber. Also, what she looks like: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/K3VKKoZR5hU/maxresdefault.jpg
> 
> **A note on continuity for people familiar with Legends:** The Thrawn Trilogy happened, plus the broad strokes of Jedi Academy and VotF, though I don't directly refer to much. _Completely ignoring_ Dark Empire. Also, here Mara and Luke eloped and did not have a public wedding, because they disliked the attention, and Mara pointed out that broadcasting the face of a former Imperial assassin everywhere was a terrible idea. So very few people know they're married. This is set about six months after they get married, so Luke and Mara are both about 35.
> 
> Warnings for discussion of (fake) torture, harm to and kidnappings of children, and someone faking being brainwashed. **Updates will be posted on Wednesdays and Saturdays.**
> 
> Enjoy!!!

The lock on the cell door shunted into place with a dull, clanking thud. With a sigh, Luke put his hands down and relaxed the surrender posture he’d been forced to hold against the back of the cell, the ridge of the bench digging into the backs of his knees. He could feel the metal beneath him humming in time with the engines of the ship, the vibration just quiet enough to avoid being uncomfortable.

“So what’re ya gonna do now?” Volyn, the bounty hunter, scoffed, her eyebrow raised and her body reclined on the bench of the opposite cell. Her frame was taut with muscle and danger. “Moralize at us?”

Their captor’s reply, however, remained completely smooth. “You’ll be interrogated and brought to trial at the Temple. And we’ll see what we can sort out here in the meantime.

Volyn—only Volyn, no last name, rumor was she had blacked out an entire continent just to destroy the records of her original life—only scoffed again, but the nameless Inquisitor slammed up against the bars. “We’ll never give you anything,” he hissed, his eyes narrow and nostrils flaring.

Luke forced himself not to roll his eyes. However much the Inquisitor’s melodrama tempted him, he was a bit busy pretending the Force binders had rendered him too incoherent to say anything.

He was also a bit busy thanking the Force they’d locked him up with the sabotaged binders Mara had discarded at his feet, rather than using their own.

Mara herself was not so lucky.

“Well, I suppose we’ll see,” their captor said, one hand slowly stroking his beard, his lightsaber glinting on his belt.

Because, somehow, they had been captured by Jedi. _Impossible_ Jedi—

Luke took the distraction to shore up his shields and quietly, oh so quietly, reach down along his bond with his wife.

_Luke,_ he immediately heard, her mental voice tense and determined. _You okay?_

He nodded ever so slightly, then raised the eyebrow most angled toward her in a silent question. Neighboring cells didn’t make for the most inconspicuous angles of addressing each other, but then again, the past ten days, they’d had it harder.

Except that the past ten days, they’d both had the Force.

Luke kept his eye fixed on the bantering Jedi and bounty hunter. With Mara in real binders, he could still hear her, but only by delving in and picking up surface thoughts as he would with a non-sensitive. With the bond blocked on her end, she wouldn’t be able to hear him back, although she was trained enough to feel his mental presence even without the Force.

_I’m okay,_ he heard next. _Not thrilled,_ this was thought with the mental equivalent of a grimace, though her expression didn’t change. _But I’m unharmed_.

Luke felt his shoulders un-tense ever so slightly. _Good,_ he thought, but she couldn’t hear, so the thought was nearly interrupted—

_I want to stay undercover,_ the thought came. _I know what they said, I know what you think might be going on, but there are too many variables._ There was a fast, flitting sense of potential deceptions, of _who_ might have jumped times, of the other prisoners, of what would happen _after_ , of the kidnapped children they were desperately trying to rescue _. But I won’t ask you to stay undercover with me. I know how hard it would be for you to stay undercover as a Sith in the Jedi Temple._

Luke caught an undertone of _Especially if…_ He didn’t follow the trailing thought. He was trying not to think too hard about it himself, because _what if—_

He couldn’t think about that.

Trying to keep his motions as confined as possible, he casually shifted positions so his real hand was draped off the edge of his thigh, visible to Mara but not the others. He put up one finger, nodded minutely, then put up a second and nodded again. Yes to both.

Not that it would be fun. But if the bounty hunter and Inquisitor realized that he had been faking his Fall, the only remaining conclusions were that Mara knew, or that she was too incompetent to notice. And Mara Jade was anything but incompetent.

The next sound he heard was a slow, throaty chuckle. Eerie and malicious, it built in volume until the Jedi and the bounty hunter stopped talking, until even the Inquisitor had turned to look. Mara’s head was leaned back against the wall of the cell, one leg propped up on the bench and her elbow resting on top of it as she lounged, seemingly not a care in the world, even as her eyes screamed a desire for violence.

Finally, the laugh came to an end. “Please,” she drawled. “As if you could hold us.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said the man who had claimed to be _General Obi-Wan Kenobi._ “You seem to be pretty held at the moment.”

For all the Inquisitor was the one who actually went around murdering innocent civilians, Mara made him look like a child throwing a tantrum. All eyes were on the former Hand as she tilted her head back just an inch and smirked. “For now.”

The Jedi narrowed his eyes, but Volyn spoke first, her lips edging into a smirk. “My dear fellow prisoner isn’t wrong, you know. Isn’t your acclaimed Jedi Temple just a hut in a field somewhere? I doubt you even _have_ holding cells. Not to mention,” her smirk widened as she jerked her thumb forward, “we’ve got _him_.”

Luke slumped a little bit further against the wall and tried to look as dazed as possible. He gave what was intended to sound like a confused moan.

The Jedi just raised an eyebrow. “You know, I do find it unlikely that out of three Force users, you’re the only one so drastically inhibited. Not that I’m sure how you’re supposed to put the Temple at a disadvantage, but you can stop pretending.”

The Inquisitor slammed his fists against the door of his cell again. “Pathetic. I congratulate you on not visibly panicking, but surely you’re not so stupid as to—“

_Fuck._ Time to commit, or time to wait and watch their captor’s reaction?

“—not notice that you’ve captured _Luke Skywalker,_ whom we’ve managed to _Turn—_ “

“I’m sorry, who?” Maybe-Obi-Wan’s look could possibly have been drier, but Luke kind of doubted it. But having known Obi-Wan as an old man, however briefly, let him see the quickest flash of what looked like surprise.

Well, time for his best evil, corrupted Sith impression, because somehow all of the kneeling at Mara’s feet as _she_ pretended to be evil had never quite convinced the bounty hunter.

Which—fuck him—they needed to change.

Luke thought of his anger on behalf of the kidnapped children—Force sensitive children kidnapped from _his_ Praxeum, _his_ responsibility to save from Volyn and the Inquisitor’s people, by admittedly desperate means—and let his emotions fuel his expression. He didn’t let the negative emotions control him, hardly let them touch him at all, only channeled them into the angle of his growing smirk.

“Luke Skywalker,” he said, projecting as much malice as he could manage. “What, haven’t you heard of me?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another reference of Mara, because she's great: http://moviecreedlive.com/img/upload/star-wars-mara-jade-creator-not-asked-to-approve-episode-9-appearance.jpg
> 
> Once again shoutout to my beta for egging me on and helping with some very last minute questions despite international travel and sleep deprivation.
> 
> Rex and Cody show up here, but I'm gonna preface this with the sad news that this'll be about it for them, largely because this fic was supposed to be 18k, and it's 53k. I didn't need to add more plots. Also, I love them, but on a story level, there's really no way the Jedi Council would let them be updated on what was happening.
> 
> Enjooyyy. And fyi the first chapter was kind of prologue-style. This is going to be the approximate chapter length going forward. Next update: Saturday!
> 
>  **Edit:** Removed the part where Mara mentions her actual name, because I 100% meant to take that out. So now, none of the prequel characters know it. Unfortunately, it's been a long work week, and I was very tired by the time I posted this. Thanks to a reviewer for asking about it!

“I’m sorry, the name doesn’t ring a bell,” Obi-Wan said, his expression still dry and what Luke suspected was deceptively mild.

“Continue to deny it,” the Inquisitor scoffed, “but even if there were anyone in the Galaxy that didn’t know the name Luke Skywalker, I _heard_ you and your men yelling for Skywalker during the fight.”

“Yeah, no,” a new voice came as the door opened. “They were calling for me.”

And standing in the doorway was the other human Jedi from the fight—young, blond, and cocky, with a Force presence stronger than any Luke had ever felt, except for one.

“And you are?” Mara drawled, eyebrow raised. She sounded carelessly disdainful, but Luke was pretty sure he saw the corner of her mouth tighten a hint more than usual.

Which made sense given that, from what she had said, Mara hadn’t exactly been friendly with Vader back when she had been the Emperor’s personal spy and assassin. Not that anyone had been friendly with Vader, ever.

Except, of course, back when he’d felt like this in the Force.

Time travel was hard to believe, yes, and Luke hadn’t been sure. But the second his father walked in, the second he felt those two the shining, familiar Force presences… Combined with the way the season and vegetation around the old Sith Temple where he’d been held had suddenly changed, not to mention Mara’s ship disappearing from behind them, Luke found himself willing to believe that it had actually happened.

“General Anakin Skywalker. And you are?”

“Darth Vexion. But you can call me ‘My Lord.’”

“Oh, great, another one,” said the last Jedi occupant of the room—judging by the lightsaber at her belt—a teenage Togruta who had trailed in behind his father. Between the three Jedi, the two armored soldiers, and the four cells, it was starting to get crowded.

One of the soldiers—the one with blue decorating his unnervingly stormtrooper-esque armor—scoffed at almost the exact same moment. “Yeah, over a whole mound of dead bodies.”

“That can be arranged.”

“If you’re done posturing, _Vexion_ ,” Obi-Wan said. His emphasis on the title suggested he did not exactly take it seriously. “I don’t suppose you have a name we might actually find in a database? Some sort of documentation of your position in the Separatist military, perhaps.”

 “What, so you can look up all my history?” Mara smirked. “Not that knowing will help you at all, seeing as I haven’t been born yet.”

Several baffled looks were directed at Mara. Luke was amused to see that even the tilted helmets of the soldiers looked utterly confused and utterly unimpressed.

“Oh, really now?” Obi-Wan asked after a moment.

“Yeah,” Volyn said sharply. “Question seconded.”

Before Mara could answer, the Inquisitor started chuckling. “General Obi-Wan Kenobi. One of the Most Wanted enemies of the Empire for almost two decades. So, Vexion, you’re telling me you think this _isn’t_ some pathetically transparent gambit by the New Republic?”

“It’s not a gambit,” Luke cut in, much as he enjoyed watching Mara at work, so entirely in her element. “I felt their Force signatures during our battle. I knew Obi-Wan Kenobi. That’s his Force signature. And the man standing next to him has the Force signature of my father.”

All eyes snapped to Luke.

“ _Excuse_ me?” the future Darth Vader demanded.

“That’s right,” Luke said quietly, his voice echoing in the utter silence despite it. “I’m your son from the future.”

Anakin scoffed. “Hah. Right. And say for _just one second_ that I believe you, why, exactly, would my _son_ be bowing before a Sith Lord?”

Luke managed, somehow, to keep himself from reacting to that mound of irony.

“Because I am one.”

“ _Right_. And that _definitely_ makes me more likely to believe your claims.”

Luke shrugged. “Believe what you want. But Lord Vexion is my Master.” The expression he’d forced onto his face bordered on fanatic.

“I think you Jedi aren’t really appreciating the gravity of that,” Volyn cut in, a nasty, gloating smile on her face. “That’s the Master of the Jedi Order. Swearing loyalty to the Sith. Of course, you’re already doomed to die out, but for those of us who already knew that, this is really quite the show.”

Obi-Wan turned to one of the soldiers. “Cody, why don’t you go send word that we’ll be returning to the Temple, in light of recent…developments.”

The yellow-accented soldier nodded and left, with what Luke was pretty sure was a snort.

“So.” Obi-Wan turned back to Luke. “You’re Anakin’s son, the Master of the Jedi Order, supposedly, after we’ve all died, or some such. And in this scenario, you’ve Fallen to the Dark Side because…?”

Well, Luke hadn’t exactly thought that convincing the Jedi he was Anakin Skywalker’s recently Turned Sith son from the future would be _easy_.

“Lord Vexion showed me the error of my ways,” Luke intoned. “She showed me the power of the Dark Side, the ecstasy of surrendering to it, and to her.”

“He’s quite the loyal disciple,” Mara drawled. “It took him a while, of course. But he’s broken in now—aren’t you, my dear?”

“Yes, Master. I am whatever you want me to be.”

“Broken in?” Obi-Wan asked, brow raised and tone dubious.

“Everyone knows the fastest way to Turn a Jedi is to torture them into it. And I’m better at it than anyone alive.”

With a scoff, Anakin said, “Yeah, if you really tortured him into it, I bet he’s gonna turn around and kill you the second he gets the chance.”

“I would never,” Luke bit out, which was in fact true. “Lord Vexion showed me the truth, showed me how pathetic my efforts to be a Jedi, to serve the _common people_ , truly were. Now I know that my true purpose in life is to serve her.”

Luke was pretty sure the Inquisitor was restraining himself from adding dramatic sound effects.

“Well,” Obi-Wan said after a moment of silence. “I suppose we shall see.”

\---

Luke had been undercover as a tortured captive for ten days, having to act like he was gradually growing Darker and Darker, restrained and pretending to be Force-blind and beaten in the bowels of a Sith Temple. Ten days without any kindness except from Mara, and all their interactions measured against the likelihood that someone was watching. She hadn’t let anyone else touch him, but he’d still had to endure the taunts and degradations, the graphic descriptions of how, exactly, the children he was trying to save would be tortured. And now, he had to pretend to be a Sith himself, to want to _hurt people_ , had to lie to Obi-Wan, had to fool his father, had to deceive all of the Jedi, had to pretend to be what he’d thrown down his lightsaber and sworn never to become—

He couldn’t escape that.

And he’d lost even the ability to talk to Mara about how much he was struggling.

Maybe, just _maybe_ , being transferred from the brig on the ship and into the holding cells at the Temple would give him the chance… Well, there was always hope, but Luke wasn’t optimistic. And in the meantime, Coruscant was still hours away.

\---

As Luke had feared, their arrival on Coruscant left with him no privacy at all, much less privacy with Mara. Instead he was curtly and efficiently escorted to a complex of cells in the depths of the Jedi Temple. Escorted in through a back way, probably to minimize what they could see and how much they could be seen. But even what little there was—

Luke had to remind himself to breathe as they walked through the Temple. As he saw its halls whole, unsinged, standing, _occupied_. He could fill the Force signatures of _thousands_ of Jedi, even as muffled as his own Force sense was by his efforts to hold it inside of himself. Even at the height of the Praxeum, he had considered a couple hundred students an amazing achievement. And those students had mostly been new learners—amazing and awe-inspiring in their very existence, but still a far, far remove from the controlled and coherent presences around him, shaped into focus by decades of training.

He wished he could let his shields drop and simply revel in the feeling of so many Force Sensitives, thriving, _alive_. And if this is what they felt like in the middle of a war—

But he couldn’t do anything that might reveal him to the Inquisitor and Volyn, marched behind him and beside him, respectively. He couldn’t let a genuine, non-malicious grin show, couldn’t turn to Mara and share his wonder—

Mara couldn’t even feel this. Luke was fighting off tears at the fullness of the Force around him, but Mara was still trapped by the actual, working Force binders that Ben—Obi-Wan—and his father had brought. To her Force sense, the entire galaxy might as well be dead.

The cascade of emotions kept Luke occupied through his trip the rest of the way to the cell, to the arguments between the Jedi and Mara, Volyn, and the Inquisitor about whether they really were from the future, about whether any evidence could be produced. Even when his arm and his DNA were drafted into this effort, Luke barely reacted. The cover story they’d told would have to excuse him being a bit of out of, because all he could do was sit there and revel as discretely as he could in the Force sense of a living Obi-Wan Kenobi, of an Anakin Skywalker not yet tainted by the Dark. All he could do was sit there, and wish he could do more.

\---

“ _A son,_ ” Obi-Wan hissed as soon as the results of the DNA match came in. But his hiss was still loud enough to echo through the private room of the Temple’s medical ward. “Really, Anakin? A _child_?”

Ahsoka’s eyes had grown to take up half her face, and all she managed was a somewhat strangled, “Master?!”

“Explain yourself, you will, Knight Skywalker.” Neither Yoda nor Mace looked happy with him.

“I have no idea how this happened!” Anakin snapped. “Look, if he’s from the future, he could be born decades from now! I didn’t intend to break the Code in the future, and I’m certainly not breaking it _now_!”

Obi-Wan sighed. “Well, between the DNA results and Luke Skywalker’s decidedly advanced prosthetic, I suppose we at least have solid evidence that they are from the future.”

No one seemed to consider this sufficient compensation for Anakin’s apparent child.

It took another forty-five minutes of arguing, and what Anakin considered to be some of the best and most desperate acting of his life, but finally Master Yoda and Master Windu had decided to believe him. Obi-Wan had…kind of defended him, though Ahsoka had just looked torn between laughter and vague bewilderment. And though Yoda and Windu had threatened to keep him under watch, they had very reluctantly agreed they couldn’t punish him for something that hadn’t yet happened—especially when this incident might persuade him to take different actions in the future.

Anakin had to admit, the thought of what he had spoken to down in the Temple holding cells, the disdainful face he’d seen slammed behind cell bars… Finding out he had a son who became a Sith was _very_ good incentive to double check his birth control.

Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the change he needed to make was to ensure that his son was never, ever in the position to be corrupted by the Sith.

If Luke had been sucked back in time just two weeks earlier, Anakin could have met his _son_ , his actual son, not this corrupted fragment of Darkness that had replaced him.

But he couldn’t think about that. It was—he just couldn’t.

Besides, Obi-Wan was still skeptical of Anakin’s word that he wasn’t already attached to someone, in a potentially child-producing way. And he couldn’t risk Obi-Wan saying anything to the Council. He couldn’t.

\---

Anakin Skywalker’s eyes stayed intently fixed on Luke’s own as the seconds passed. His stare was as intense as Luke had ever seen, and far more intense than he’d ever seen from Vader, given the man’s mask. The weight of Vader’s regard had been terrifying on Bespin and no easy thing at Endor. The weight of Anakin Skywalker’s regard was easily less than that, but it was still palpable.

“So,” Anakin finally said, voice firm and steady. He held himself completely still, but Luke had the contradictory impression that his father could explode into motion and tension at any second. “How did…all this…happen.”

Despite the words, it did not sound like a question.

And thus Luke was left in the position of having to pretend to be evil while talking to a version of his father that wasn’t evil yet. He had been doing that over the course of the previous day, during their imprisonment on the Jedi’s ship and the battle before it, but one-on-one…that was worse.

At least it wasn’t as painful as having to pretend to be evil to Ben.

“Lord Vexion showed me the power of the Dark Side,” Luke said. If his voice was a bit lower than normal, that was because he was basically doing a Darth Vader impression.

Minus the breathing and the aesthetic and the murdering people.

Although they had let him keep his clothes after a very thorough pat-down, meaning he was still wearing the all-black outfit that served as his customary alternative to robes. So, a little of the aesthetic.

“You mean when she was torturing you,” Anakin once again did not ask. His fist clenched on the interrogation room table.

“The pain was worth it, to see the true weakness of the Light,” Luke riffed, trying to keep his face as even as possible. Whatever example the Inquisitor had set, Vader and the Emperor had not been known for their expressiveness. And he really didn’t think cackling was his strongest move.

Anakin just scoffed. “It’s the Dark Side that’s weak. The only people who give into it are stupid and desperate and evil.”

Luke wasn’t quite sure what to do with that amount of concentrated irony. So instead, he raised a pointed eyebrow and said, “You think I’m weak and stupid?”

Anakin’s face contorted. “I didn’t— No. I think you were desperate. Understandably, after that waste of sentient life _tortured_ you.”

Said the man who had cut off his hand, however much Luke had made peace with their encounters. “And I’m better for it. I’ve embraced my destiny.”

With a snort, Anakin responded, “Yeah, destiny’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” What that was about, Luke had no idea.

He and Mara hadn’t had the chance to discuss this, to discuss anything. Or, well, she’d discussed things with him, but he hadn’t been able to say anything back.

They were trapped in the past. Somehow. They had to get back, somehow—they had kidnapped children to save.

But while Luke could keep playing evil, could bide his time until they got a location out of the bounty hunter and the Inquisitor…rescuing the children wasn’t the only thing he might be able to accomplish.

He needed to save the thirty Force sensitive children kidnapped from his own Praxeum. No matter what, he wouldn’t give up on them—if there was even the slightest chance that he and Mara could get back to their own time, he had to keep trying to get a location. He couldn’t abandon any innocent children, but much less ones that had been under his protection.

But if he and Mara were very smart and very, very careful about it…they might be able to save the whole Galaxy too.

By pretending to want to conquer it. “Maybe your destiny wasn’t,” Luke returned in as portentous a voice as he could manage, “but mine will be, and I will lay the Galaxy at the feet of my Empress.”

Anakin’s only response was a look of pain and disgust.

\---

It was easy to see the echoes of Darth Vader in Anakin Skywalker. Too easy for anyone who knew his future to be comfortable with the parallels. Or, at least, too easy for Mara Jade to be comfortable with the parallels—she didn’t know for sure, since she couldn’t fucking ask him, but Mara strongly suspected that Luke was better than managing. At least with _that_ part of it all.

With the having to pretend he was a Sith while meeting his father and Obi-Wan Kenobi part, probably not so much.

Mara wasn’t Luke, though. She didn’t have his personal attachment to Darth Vader, nor his seemingly endless capacity for forgiveness, even for people who probably didn’t deserve it.

That said, for all Mara lacked Luke’s personal attachment to Darth Vader, she’d also known him much longer. Not necessarily better, given the question of whether anyone but the Emperor actually _knew_ Darth Vader, but…

Being interrogated by Anakin Skywalker was uncomfortable, was her point.

“Isn’t it a conflict of interest for you to be questioning the woman who corrupted your son?” Mara asked, kind of wishing she could kick her feet up on the table for maximum abrasive casualness. But sadly they were cuffed to the chair. “You’re a Jedi, you’re big on those ethical quandary things, right?”

Skywalker actually snarled at her in response. “Shut up, _Sith._ ”

“I thought the whole point of this exercise was that you wanted me to talk.”

“Only if you’re going to tell me how you all managed to throw yourselves back into the past,” he said, glaring.

That was the one big difference between talking to Skywalker and talking to Vader: Skywalker actually had facial expressions. Facial expressions that were easier to read than the typical datapad.

“You sure about that?” Mara asked, smirking. “Because I can tell you so many other things—like how your son screamed as I tore down his shields, ground them to dust, and ravaged his mind.”

Skywalker’s fists clenched on the table. Or rather, one of his hands clenched into a fist, the other froze, trembling with anger, into an open and claw-like position.

“Be glad I’m not allowed to hurt you,” Skywalker growled, “because you have _no idea_ how tempted I am.”

Frankly, Mara wasn’t sure that Luke’s “provoke Anakin Skywalker into realizing he’s in danger of Falling before he actually does” plan would actually work. The details, admittedly, had been sparse, the plan hastily communicated to her between discrete handsigns and carefully whispered asides in the depth of night. And she wasn’t sure it wouldn’t just push Anakin Skywalker that much closer to being Vader. But their options were limited.

That didn’t mean her choice to push the plan so hard in an unsupervised interrogation was the smartest thing she’d ever done.

She let a little bit of her caution show. Let Skywalker think she was intimidated by him.

In a careful show of not-quite-scared acquiescence, she ground out, “We didn’t throw ourselves back into the past on purpose. Obviously. Since we had no idea what was going on and were immediately caught by you.”

Her act seemed to work—Skywalker didn’t soften, precisely, but his anger didn’t escalate again either. His open hand tightened into a normal fist.

Inwardly, she sneered. She had spent the first twenty years of her life in service of a Sith Lord far more powerful and cunning than _Vader_ would ever manage. If she could survive her former master sending her to spy on Vader at the height of his power, she could make it through one measly interrogation with Vader’s Light Side self.

Mara had always been an unparalleled spy. Sidious had kept her around for a reason. And Skywalker seemed to have even less ability to spot deception than Vader did.

“So what, you were just standing there, and boom, you’re in the past?”

“Well, we were standing in the courtyard of an abandoned Sith Temple, but yes.”

Skywalker’s eyes narrowed. “The Sith Temple you stayed on the grounds of while _torturing my son_.”

Mara narrowed her eyes in return. “Yes. At length.”

Skywalker leaned in, starting to raise one of his hands—the one that had just seconds before been poised to strangle someone.

Mara resisted the urge to swallow. She could still breathe. So far. She didn’t need to prove it to herself.

“You know,” Skywalker said, tone dark and relishing in the just-visible hint of her reaction, “these interrogations aren’t being recorded. Most of them are observed, but none of them are recorded, and today the Jedi are busy.” His smirk promised pain. “If you happened to get loose, and I had to kill you, every single Jedi would believe it.”

Had Vader’s face ever looked like that, under the mask?

Mara hated to admit that she’d miscalculated. She always had. In the presence of the other Jedi, Vader had kept his demeanor reasonable, his aggression throttled down. But it was six months to Empire Day, and clearly Vader was closer to his Fall than she and Luke had known.

Luke’s plan to get Skywalker to see how far he’d already fallen was too much of a risk. It was too much of a risk because there was a fair likelihood that Skywalker _already knew._ And even if he didn’t, the man had far too much arrogance—it was an open question whether he’d be willing to believe them about his future. Especially given their…circumstances.

Mara made an executive decision. She refused to cede ground, but neither did she shift her body language to provoke him. Still, he couldn’t believe that anything was too good to be true—if she was going to succeed, her performance needed to be _perfect_.

“I believe you,” she said, carefully not mentioning the Sith-like nature of his threats. Either he already knew, or he’d escalate in defensiveness. Either way, no help to her.

Skywalker seemed taken ever so slightly aback by her refusal to bluster. Perfect. Before he could gather himself, she continued, “I believe you, and I don’t want to die. So let me tell you something that’s worth my life.”

Anger and wariness made for an odd mix on Skywalker’s face. “If this is a trick, or more about my son…”

“It is about your son,” Mara admitted, tone slow and neutral, because Skywalker responded positively to people he perceived to be upfront about their intentions. And she needed every last shred of the benefit of the doubt she could get. “But not like earlier. It’s one of the best guarded secrets of the Sith.”

“What, some ancient secret torture method—”

“The opposite,” Mara said, before Skywalker’s anger could escalate further. “It’s the secret _weakness_ of the Sith.”

At _that_ , Skywalker looked interested. “Yeah?” he asked, tone still hard and eyebrow raised.

“The most dire, most carefully guarded secret of the Sith is this,” she said, staring intently into his eyes. “Falls aren’t permanent. You can still save him.”

Skywalker’s eyes widened immensely before they narrowed again. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not. The Sith Master I served, in my future, had an apprentice. That apprentice cast off the Dark Side and returned to the Light.”

“Just how stupid do you think I am _—_ ”

“I don’t.”

Skywalker didn’t appreciate being cut off.

“I _don’t_ ,” Mara said, before he could protest, and conveniently it was true. Vader had been a tactical genius, if uncaring of the more covert battlefields. “This is the most closely guarded secret of the Sith, and for obvious reason. But it’s true. If you hear me out, I can tell you how to save your son.”

Skywalker’s gaze bore into her. “And if I find out you’re lying?”

“Hear me out. Try to reach him. And if not,” Mara shrugged, the motion making her binders clank together awkwardly, “it’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

The reminder that he could always come back and murder her later seemed to settle Skywalker. Mara found it more unnerving than she wanted to admit—which was to say, at all—but she also understood the feeling.

“Fine,” Skywalker bit out, his tone almost mocking, “ _convince me_.”

Mara took a deep breath. Then, she lied as convincingly as she ever had. “Luke Fell less than a week ago. He hasn’t hurt anyone.” Except Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and their feelings, but it would be prudent to leave that out. “He hasn’t killed anyone. He’s barely channeled the Dark Side, given that he was out of my Force binders for all of ten minutes before you showed up and put them back on.”

“If he only channeled the Dark Side for ten minutes, why is he like _that_.” Luke had kept the worst of his posturing, of his threats, away from his father and Obi-Wan. But clearly they’d still heard. Probably because the cells had cameras and recording devices, even if the interrogation rooms did not—a fact which did not speak well of the more ancient Jedi Order.

Mara kept her tone perfectly even. It was…nice, for once, to have an excuse to not pretend to revel in her husband’s supposed pain. “He is scared and angry and traumatized. He’s lashing out—and lashing out from those emotions, which fall into the patterns the Dark Side set within his mind and within his presence in the Force. Especially since I channeled the Dark Side through him as part of my efforts to turn him, setting those paths. But contrary to what the Sith have convinced the Jedi Order,” a slight risk, but less of one than implying the Order was to blame for their own ignorance, “Falling is a choice. Using the Dark Side is a choice. One that blinds you to all other options, yes, and one that’s far too easy to make. But it is still possible for Luke to choose otherwise.”

“You’re saying,” Anakin said through gritted teeth, “that my son just has to choose to return to the Light Side, and he can.”

Mara shrugged, because he’d lash out if he thought she was trying too hard to win him over. “It’s not easy, but yes. He can. He just to realize that he has a choice. And receive enough support after what he’s been through to be able to make that choice.”

“After what _you_ put him through.”

Mara inclined her chin. “Yes. After what I put him through.” Skywalker wasn’t entirely wrong.

If this got Luke transferred to a separate cell, away from the rest of them, he would not be happy.

Mara might be, though.

Luke had been through enough already. He didn’t deserve to have to be around his cellmates, around the reminders of his trauma, any longer.

It was a long time before Skywalker spoke again. “If you’re telling the truth, I want specifics. How to help him.”

“I’m not a mind healer.”

Skywalker leaned forward, started to open his mouth—

Mara sighed. “You usually interrogate me, because the obvious conflict of interest is even greater with your son. Next time, don’t. Talk to him. Don’t push too hard. Just try to get to know him. You don’t even need the front of the interrogation—he knows you’re his father. Your reasons will be believable. So give him a break. Be the first person in weeks that has been kind to him, that isn’t trying to force him into anything.”

Skywalker leaned back in his seat. He drummed his gloved fingers on the table. Finally, he answered: “Fine. I’ll try it. But if you’re lying to me, we are going to have another conversation.”

“Keep in mind, change won’t be immediate,” Mara cautioned. “But I swear, I’m not lying to you.”

Skywalker escorted her back to her cell in silence. She pretended not to notice the long, assessing, _longing_ stare he gave Luke on the way out.

Maybe if they were lucky, she hadn’t only bought herself more time. Maybe Anakin Skywalker knowing he _could_ return to the Light would enable him to do so much, much sooner. Without knowing how he Fell, they had no way to know.

But first, she had to inform Luke that there was a change of plans.

\---

 _You **what?**_ Luke thought. But, of course, Mara couldn’t hear him.

 _I already told you why I did it, Farmboy, so you can stop freaking out_. Even completely unable to hear him, Mara still knew what he was thinking. They understood each other like that.

_So, you know, when he shows up tomorrow, be prepared. And please give him at least moderate encouragement, or my life is about to get much more complicated._

Yeah, Luke hadn’t exactly had his father genuinely threatening to murder his imprisoned wife on the list of things he would have expected out of a trip to the past.

Mara raised her mental shields after that—not ones reinforced by the Force, but the natural shielding that any sentient developed over time. Even without the Force, she was one of the few people with shields strong enough that Luke probably couldn’t have broken them if he’d wanted to.

About five minutes later, the shields folded again, presumably once Mara had mustered her thoughts. _He’s further gone than we thought. Probably further than he realizes. But I don’t think he’s too far gone for you to reach._

Presumably, given that twenty years of tyranny and genocide hadn’t left Anakin Skywalker too far gone for Luke to reach.

 _And I think getting the chance to save his son could be the perfect incentive for him to look a little more toward the Light_.

Luke could only hope.

\---

 _Ben_.

His first teacher. His mentor. A man who had been put through the pain of watching Anakin Skywalker Fall, and now was seeing his second student Fallen instead. If being interrogated by his father had been, or being held captive on his father’s ship while pretending to be evil, doing all of that with Ben had been so much worse.

“So. Luke Skywalker. I don’t suppose you feel like telling me how old you are, or how old your father was when he had you?”

He had to act evil to a younger Ben. That was great. Really, really great. Terrific. He could totally do that, no issues at all.

Managing a Vader impression wasn’t something Luke could do with his facial expressions, for obvious reasons, but he decided a smirk was a nice, neutral option. “I was born the day the Republic died.”

“And what day was that, exactly?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Yes. I would. Which I why I just asked you. But since you’re apparently not willing to answer that, how about your age? Or we can move on to the course of events in the Galaxy, but I thought you might prefer to start here.”

Why not? Surely he wasn’t expected to fight Obi-Wan on every single point. Probably. But he let none of his debate appear in voice and just shrugged. “I’m thirty-five.”

Actually, Obi-Wan also looked around thirty-five, and wasn’t that a trip and a half. Obi-Wan Kenobi was his _peer_.

“When did you establish the New Jedi Order?”

“Back when I was weak and pathetic enough to think the Jedi should exist.”

“And Darth Vexion changed your mind?”

“Yes.” Luke said with a zealot’s smile, one lit with a mad worshipfulness that painfully distorted the love he felt toward his wife. “Lord Vexion showed me the Darkness. She saved me from an eternity of misery, of my absurd, endless attempts to help other people. She showed me the true way: that we could only help the Galaxy by ruling it. And by making sure the Jedi Order dies once more.”

“So you intended to reenact this supposed fall of the Jedi?”

“I intend to massacre them. I intend to set fire to my own Temple and douse the flames with the blood of my students. Only then will the Galaxy be cleansed.”

Luke kind of wanted to vomit. The fact that he was ripping rhetoric from Darth Vader and the old propaganda videos of the Empire only made it worse.

“And yet only two weeks ago, you claim you were loyal to the Order, to the Light. Is Vexion really so powerful that she could make you fall so far, and not even blame her for it?”

“You underestimate her power,” Luke said, and because the best way to channel Darth Vader was to actually quote him, “and you underestimate the power of the Dark Side.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early update because I had a kind of shitty day. (Cheer me up with comments?) But seriously thank god it's the weekend. Next update will be Wednesday as normal, and huge thanks as always to SapphiraBlue for the beta and endless cheerleading.
> 
> Also, since a reviewer asked, if anyone is confused: the Inquisitor and Volyn are separate characters. The Inquisitor hasn't bothered telling anyone his designation, and Volyn is a non-Force-sensitive Imperialist bounty hunter. Both of them are OCs, and neither of them is Mara's alias, Darth Vexion. Which, if you're curious, I'm pronouncing as "VEK-shun," but you're free to pronounce it however you think sounds best.
> 
>  **And heads up, I deleted the part where Mara told the Jedi her real name last chapter.** I thought I had taken it out during edits but I was super tired that night and totally missed it. Thanks to a reviewer for asking about it. So yeah, the Jedi have no idea her name is Mara Jade yet.

It was with a quiet, cautious joy and no small amount of apprehension that Luke let his father lead him into the interrogation room the next day. Mara had forewarned him of what Anakin would be trying, and Luke…

Honestly, he had no idea how he’d handle it. But he was about to get the chance to talk to his father, actually talk, without his father trying to interrogate him, and that was something. Something amazing, actually.

Anakin motioned for Luke to take a seat, and Luke did, his binders clanking on the metal table as he folded his hands on top of it. Anakin flinches, but said nothing about it.

In fact, Anakin said nothing at all—for once. He was too busy staring at Luke in… In something.

“So,” Luke ventured after about a minute passed, “about that interrogation?” It almost certainly wasn’t forthcoming, but he couldn’t afford to let on to his father that he knew that. Unfortunately, if Luke wanted a chance at saving Anakin Skywalker, he couldn’t make this too easy on him.

Luke just needed to figure out how hard he did have to make it.

Anakin, for his part, blinked rapidly. “No—no interrogation today,” he said. “Or maybe later, with Obi-Wan, I don’t—that’s not why I’m here.” Anakin raised his chin, stared Luke straight in the eyes. “You’re my son. I want the chance to get to know you.”

It was what Luke had dreamed of since he was a child. “Even your son the Sith?”

Anakin’s expression tightened, but he didn’t back down. “You’re still my son. And I’m sure you have things to talk about besides being a Sith. So let’s talk.” Anakin attempted a warm smile. Luke appreciated the effort.

Luke had dealt with much worse than a conversation with a non-evil version of his father, and yet…he had no idea what to say.

He was probably supposed to play up the Sith thing, at least a little bit. Before relenting. But…he just couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.

“Alright,” Luke said, swallowing back his apprehension. “What about?”

Anakin’s gaze darted across him intently, as if he was trying to decrypt and memorize Luke’s every emotion and feature. “Anything. Where did you grow up? What was your childhood like? What’s your favorite starship?”

Well, it was good to know he had inherited something besides the Force from his father. “My favorite ship doesn’t exist in your time yet,” Luke said, chuckling a little. “But it’s a starfighter called an X-Wing. Pretty utilitarian, but they handle like a dream. Some of the most maneuverable fighters in the galaxy. _And_ they have their own built-in hyperdrives.”

Anakin’s attention seemed to be successfully caught. “You say that like it’s uncommon,” he scoffed with a real smile, “which makes me think these X-Wings can’t hold up at all against Jedi Starfighters.”

\---

“I can’t…talk too much about the future,” Luke said, with a hint of apology that seemed like it might be real.

“Then tell me about your family. Without, you know, compromising details.”

“Well,” and here Luke actually started to smile—a small but genuine smile, not some evil, hollow mockery of one. “I just got married about six months ago.”

Anakin couldn’t stop himself from sputtering, Jedi dignity be damned. “You have a _wife_?”

“What, is it hard to believe?” Luke asked, looking both amused and confused.

“ _Yes._ Jedi _don’t get married._ ”

“Huh.” A pause. “Well. That explains…some things.”

“How in the Galaxy did you not know that?!”

Luke grimaced. “You know, downfall of the Order and all, I suppose. There’s not a lot of records. I...” he trailed off, seeming to have an internal debate with himself, before he continued. “I only learned what my two teachers told me. And they both died shortly after taking me as a student.”

Luke was acting very normal for a crazy, evil person. Too normal. “And how would your wife feel about you running off to be a Sith with Darth Vexion after she tortured you?”

Luke’s face made an odd expression. “Probably better than she’d feel about me being stranded thirty-five years in the past.” Almost shockingly, he didn’t rise to the bait.

Maybe Vexion was right. Maybe Falls were reversible, maybe there was still good in Luke.

Or maybe he just had better control of his temper than he’d let on.

But whichever the answer, there was nothing that would make Anakin regret trying to get to know his son.

“What’s,” Anakin swallowed. “Your wife. What’s she like.”

Luke’s smile, his real, genuine smile, was radiant. “She’s amazing,” he said, voice lightening and eyes brightening at the thought. (His eyes were still blue. Anakin had to hope that meant he wasn’t too far gone.) “Brave. Loyal. Unbelievably strong. She puts up with exactly the right amount of my shit—and I was a pilot, so I have a lot of it. She’s guarded, but she’s so much more caring than she lets on, and it’s beautiful to see. She’s beautiful. And when she really, really laughs, it’s the best sound in the universe.”

“She sounds amazing,” Anakin replied, letting his own smile break through. Luke’s joy was catching. “I guess you can’t tell me her name, but can you tell how you met?”

Luke shifted in his seat. “Uh, no.” Well, it had been a long shot. “But I can tell you about the time I accidentally offended a planetary ambassador and she had to fake a bank heist at the bank next door in order to distract them enough to forget about it.”

Anakin raised an eyebrow. “How does one fake a bank heist?”

Luke looked…sheepish? Were Sith allowed to look sheepish? “She didn’t steal anything, but she did actually break into the bank. Wearing a mask. And commed me to tell me to heroically scare her off to impress our hosts.”

Anakin laughed almost despite himself, because that sounded like an entertainingly giant mess.

“Yeah,” Luke laughed, “it was a little, uh, whimsical for her. She likes to pretend to be above it all, but then something like that happens, and, well, I know the truth.”

“Well, next time I offend a dignitary, I’ll try asking my Padawan to rob a bank.”

There was a tightness in Anakin’s chest and throat. That wasn’t uncommon—it never had been, and the war had only made it worse. But this time he wasn’t so sure it meant the same thing. This time, it felt like hope.

\---

“A _son_ ,” Padmé whispered. “We have a _son_.”

“I know,” Anakin whispered back.

Padmé whirled on him, voice rapt. “What’s he like?”

“Well, uh, I—I told you about the whole Sith thing. So, he’s…there were some. Threats. Vivid ones. Talking with the other captives about his desire to murder Jedi. So.”

“I know, Anakin, not that part. I don’t need to hear any more of that for now. You said you talked to him normally this morning, had an actual conversation with him, not an interrogation. Tell me what he said there. And tell me what he _looks_ like, since the Jedi Council would probably kill you if you tried to sneak out a holo.”

“Yeah,” Anakin sighed, but internally he was debating the logistics of that proposition. But when he talked about Luke—about the good moments with Luke—his face started to brighten more and more with every word he said. “He looks like me,” Anakin said, “blond hair, blue eyes, but the shape of them is yours, and the shape of his nose, and the texture of his hair.” A chuckle. “His height is yours too, unfortunately.”

“Anakin Skywalker, are you calling me _short_?” Padmé tried to conceal her grin.

“Never, my queen,” Anakin answered, miming a bow as well as he could while curled up against his wife on the couch of her apartment—him sitting traditionally, if leaning into her to the side, while Padmé’s back rested against the high arm of the couch and her legs rested over his thighs. Her head was tucked into his shoulder. The mock bow, as such, brought Anakin’s face almost to his wife’s knees.

“And what else?” Padmé demanded. “What else is he like? What did he tell you about himself?”

“Well, he’s thirty-five, so that’s…weird.”

“Obi-Wan’s age,” Padmé murmured. “Older than both of us.”

“Yeah. So there’s that. And you know what’s even weirder? He has a _wife_.”

Padmé froze. “He does?”

“Yeah. Didn’t even know why I’m surprised. Apparently when the Jedi all died, no one remembered that part of the Code, and whoever the two people that taught him were, they never bothered to tell him.”

“Is he happy? Did he say whether he was happy?”

Anakin’s smile softened. “He did. He practically glowed, talking about her. Even with everything that happened to him… Wouldn’t tell me her name or anything, but he loves her. And she sounds great—he had a couple hilarious stories about how she dealt with diplomats.”

Padmé let out a long, deep breath. “I’m glad,” she said, smiling. “I’m glad there is some brightness in this. I’m glad our son knows love, and doesn’t have to deny his heart.”

Like Anakin had to, every single day, every moment that wasn’t him and his wife alone in her apartment. “Me too,” he murmured, and pulled Padmé in closer.

\---

“So. Vexion, was it?”

Mara’s only response was to raise an eyebrow. Her hands were cuffed on her lap, but they hadn’t restrained her ankles, and so her chair was balanced on only its rear legs as she leaned back and rested her feet on the top of the interrogation room table. It was a precarious pose designed to look as effortless as it did infuriating.

“Are you going to answer the question?” Obi-Wan Kenobi asked.

“I’m sorry,” she drawled, face curled into an expression of utter disdain, “I was under the impression you knew from when you held me prisoner on your pathetic little ship.”

“Not so pathetic that you could escape it, contrary to your earlier claims.”

Mara scoffed. “If I had wanted to break out, I would have. And I would have bathed your ship in the blood of you, your apprentice, his apprentice, and every single one of your men.”

“So you have said several times. My dear, I’m beginning to think you can’t live up to your boasts.”

Mara’s lip curled. That had been awfully familiar of him—she used her relatively mild displeasure and fed it into her performance, multiplied several times over. “Or maybe I didn’t massacre everyone because I didn’t want to. Yet.”

“And whyever would you want to wait?”

Mara lunged forward, snapping upright, legs off the table, and ended up sitting normally but leaning across the table toward him, a feral grin on her face. “Well, you did take me to the heart of the Jedi Temple.”

Obi-Wan’s spine straightened even beyond his picture perfect posture. “You’ll do no harm here. Not from inside those binders.”

Slowly, Mara leaned back in her chair and kicked her feet up once again. “If you say so,” she said, smirk as sharp as any of the knives they’d confiscated upon her arrest. “But we Sith are about ambition, yes? I would be a pretty wretched Sith if I was content to just sit in your quaint little cell.”

“I thought the Sith were supposed to be wretched.”

Mara shrugged artfully. “There’s wretched ambitions and then there’s non-existent ambitions. The Sith only aspire to the morally deplorable kind.”

Obi-Wan’s eyebrow raised. “All right, I’ll bite. What’s your ambition? Regale me.”

“Well, step number one is to monologue about all of my evil plans so that you’ll be able to stop me more easily.” Mara tilted her chin up to look down her nose at Obi-Wan. “Obviously.”

“Forgive me my presumption, then,” Obi-Wan said through a wry and dark smile, “you just seemed so eager to talk about them.”

“I suppose I’ve changed my mind, then. I don’t want to talk about my own plans. No, I want to hear about you.”

For the first time in the interrogation, Obi-Wan’s face showed a hint of what Mara was pretty sure was non-choreographed emotion. “Oh?”

Mara slowly baited her trap. “Yes, I’m terribly curious. I’ve heard of you, of course, but only what Darth Sidious and Darth Vader had to say about you. Their descriptions were…unflattering. I suppose I want to see how accurate they were.”

She was genuinely curious, actually. This was the man that had started her husband on his path, one of the last of the Old Jedi Order. Already he was conducting himself much better than many had when faced with her genuine attempts to intimidate them, but she wasn’t done testing his mettle any more than she was done with her cover.

Obi-Wan, however, zeroed in on what she hadn’t said. “I take that to mean I survived the fall of the Jedi, then.”

Just as she’d hoped. “All I can say,” she said, bearing her teeth, “is that the entire Galaxy rejoiced at the news of your death.”

Obi-Wan’s mouth tightened. “So I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Mara answered. “The entire Republic rejoiced in the death of all of the Jedi at the dawn of the Empire. Your fame could have just happened to earn you a separate announcement.”

“And at whose hands was it? Your Master? You may hold him in high esteem, but I’ve had plenty of experience with Sith Lords, and I’m hard-pressed to believe he could defeat me.”

His attempts to bait her might have worked, were she two decades younger. “They announced your defeat all over the Galaxy. If there had been video footage, I’m sure there would have been a highlights reel.” Then, conspiratorial. “I wasn’t there, of course. But I heard the report. It seems you went down quite quickly. Two minutes, if I recall, before a lightsaber cut you in half. And you’re supposed to be one of the greatest of the Jedi Generals—so mighty is your Order.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes narrowed for less than a tenth of a second. Someone not intensely trained in observing the body language of others would never have caught it. But if she hadn’t wanted to give him some warning, she wouldn’t have described his death.

However, it wasn’t his death that Obi-Wan addressed. His strategy for controlling the interrogation seemed to center around refusing to ask whatever she said, and addressing the subtext. It had worked in her favor before, but this time she had expected him to rise to the challenge she had leveled. “What I find interesting,” Obi-Wan began, “is that you listed two Sith Lords. Since you claim to be a Sith yourself, and to have taken Luke as your apprentice, I find this highly interesting. After all, as I assume you know, there are only ever two Sith at a time.”

Actually, she _hadn’t_ known that. She had just assumed that Sidious’s favoring of Vader was rooted in his superior Force powers and his interest in setting his people up against each other. At the time, she had believed it was because the Emperor thought it would make them all stronger.

But she could hardly admit her ignorance. Instead, she let her grin grow larger. “That’s what the Sith Lords have led you to think.”

Humans often found too wide or long-lasting of a smile to be deeply unsettling.

\---

 _You know,_ Mara thought loudly, once she was uncomfortably ensconced back in her cell, _Anakin Skywalker seemed to come back pretty happy after his last couple chats with you_.

Luke raised an eyebrow to communicate, _So_? It was, after all, her strategy that had led to it—though deep down, he knew being too nice put them at risk.

 _I can’t pull the weight of this act with your father_ —Luke could catch the shades of her carefully not thinking _Vader_ — _because he would kill me. And we can’t let them figure it out. We can’t risk them deciding to try to play prisoner’s dilemma with Volyn and the Inquisitor, tell them that we’re not really Sith in an attempt to solicit information. We’d lose all chance of getting the children’s location._

Luke’s frown wasn’t exactly his own decision, but it got the point across well enough. It wasn’t that he didn’t agree with Mara—but this was his father, not to mention Ben, his first mentor…

 _Be careful, though,_ Mara said. _You were digging in too hard earlier, from what I saw. You’re doing a good job coming up with the lines, but doing it too much is letting your distaste for what you’re saying peak through. It ends up sounding hollow. So pull back a bit before they notice._ Luke supposed she would know what actual, non-hollow Sith threats sounded like. She had, after all, interacted with Vader and the Emperor far more than Luke had. _I can give more detailed advice, but most of it is going to boil down to saying_ moderation _and then telling you how to do a better Darth Vader impression_.

Luke sighed internally. And maybe a bit externally. Pretending to be a Sith and impersonating his future, evil father wasn’t exactly easy. But Mara was right. That would…that would have to still be a thing.

\---

 “You’re assuming we even can go back,” Volyn scoffed.

“We can and we will!” the Inquisitor shouted, gesticulating madly. “We have a galaxy to reclaim, and the Force will return us to where we can do so!”

Mara rolled her eyes theatrically. “Like the Force stopped the Empire from falling in the first place? I believe we can go back, and we can wreak havoc on the New Republic, but we can’t count on everything just happening for us.”

“Why not?” the Inquisitor asked, bringing the full weight of his yellow gaze onto her. “That’s how we came to be in the past.”

“Number one rule of bounty hunting,” Volyn retorted. “Assume all coincidences will work against you. If you want something to go right, you need to work for it.”

“That’s what Mara is saying,” Luke broke in. “We need to work for it.”

“We need a plan,” Mara said. “A plan for how to get back, and a plan for what to do when we get there.” Including, perhaps, the first _location_ they would go to.

“Yeah,” Volyn said, “because we can do so much from inside these cells.”

“I was the Emperor’s personal assassin. Do you really think I can’t break out of this cell eventually?”

Volyn shot her a pointed glare—a reminder that their conversations were being recorded. They hadn’t been told, of course, but they’d figured it out a few hours into the interrogations. The Jedi could sometimes be too self-righteous to be subtle, and Mara had plenty of experience manipulating people through their own self-righteousness. The disclosure had only confirmed their assumptions, but it had been valuable confirmation nonetheless.

The Inquisitor had even less idea of how to be subtle than the worst of the Jedi. “So break us all out already!” he roared. “We have Jedi to slaughter and a future to get back to!”

Mara coaxed a malicious grin across her face. “And we have more Jedi to slaughter once we get there.” She’d been bringing it up for days, trying to get anything about the location of the Force-sensitive children the Inquisitor and Volyn had kidnapped, all without success.

“Their blood will run in the streets,” the Inquisitor hissed, “isn’t that right, _Skywalker_?”

Mara’s gaze shot to Luke, grin still on her face. His acting abilities were better than many would expect—far better than she’d expected, when they’d first met—but threats to his students were always a weakness.

Thankfully his protective fury had not yet broken through. At least, not where anyone could see.

“Remember, Inquisitor,” Luke said, tone even in what the Inquisitor probably perceived as a mockery of Jedi serenity, but was in fact him drawing on it, “my kill count far outstrips yours. Don’t count me out just because none of them were done using the Dark Side. The only difference is who I look forward to killing.”

Volyn’s eyes narrowed. “The Force is so interesting, isn’t it?” she asked. “Take up the Dark Side, and suddenly it’s opposite day when it comes to all of your allegiances. How convenient, that you don’t simply want to torture Imperials to brutal deaths.”

Mara didn’t twitch, because she was better than that. But inside…no part of her wanted to leave Luke to handle this one.

Luke simply laughed, dark and quiet. “It’s not convenient. You know what the point of the torture was. All my loyalty is to Mara now.”

“Not the Empire?” the Inquisitor asked, tone burning.

“No.”

“How dare you—” the Inquisitor started.

“My absolute loyalty is to Mara, but Mara’s loyalty is to the Empire. So you have me for as long as you have her.”

“Which will be forever,” Mara cut in. “I don’t forget my roots, nor my loyalty.”

The Inquisitor looked mutinous. “You told us Skywalker would be converted—”

“I told you I would make him loyal to _me_. That is why I alone tortured him, that is why you had no involvement in breaking down and restructuring his mind.” She let her smile widen with the genuine pleasure of talking back to the Inquisitor. “Well, that and the fact that you couldn’t have done it.”

The Inquisitor growled at her, lunged forward, and stopped just short of being electrocuted by the forcefield a millimeter to the inside of his cell bars.

“Don’t deny it. You needed my assistance with him, and you’ll need my assistance breaking the children.”

“Actually,” Volyn drawled, “thirty more Force-sensitives loyal to you and only you kinda sounds like the last thing we need.”

“There is more than one way to break someone, and more than one way to rebuild them,” Mara responded. “Of course the children will be made loyal to the Empire. Luke was a special circumstance.” She turned to stare at him through the bars and the forcefields between their cells, gaze possessive and predatory. “He was my revenge. Weren’t you, dear?”

“Yes, my Master,” Luke said, posture subservient and tone seemingly the picture of contentment. Which she knew, intellectually, was because Luke thought that part of the act was awkward at worst. He genuinely wasn’t disturbed by it, unlike so much of what he had been saying.

But still, Mara’s stomach churned.

“And you deserved it, didn’t you? For killing the Emperor, you deserved every single thing I did to you and more. You deserve to be forced to serve the Empire you tried to destroy, and you deserve to be forced to like it.”

“I deserve a thousand years of torture for what I did to hurt you,” Luke said, voice fervent and mouth smiling. “I will always love you for showing me the truth. For making me yours.”

Instinctively Mara reached out to touch his mind, to bolster him, to be with him through all of the awful things she was saying. But the Force binders were tight and cold on her wrists.

She turned to the Inquisitor. “Skywalker’s destruction was my personal revenge, but also the Emperor’s legacy. The children you’ve captured will be the Emperor’s legacy alone.”

A pleased smirk crossed Volyn’s face. “Good.”

But about the location of the children, Volyn said nothing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think you'll all enjoy this chapter in particular...in fact I'm so sure of it I'm sitting here smirking.
> 
> Thanks as always to my beta/cheerleader extraordinaire, SapphiraBlue!
> 
> Also, new, higher chapter count! That's not actually because I finally wrote more stuff (yet...which you can also mostly thank SapphiraBlue for if more happens), but because I actually finally figured out where my chapter breaks are.

_Luke woke up in chains. The Force binders were still heavy around his wrists, but traditional shackles were fastened to his arms right above them, each secured to the arm of an old, uncomfortable, and unfortunately solid metal chair. Even in his unconsciousness, they had begun to chafe. Startled and still bleary with sleep, he tried to move, only to discover his legs were chained to the chair as well._

_“So the hallowed Jedi Master is awake,” a familiar voice drawled. Luke tried to open his eyes, his situation rushing back, but before he could a fist impacted his jaw,_ **_hard._**

_Blinking away the pain, Luke’s eyes finally opened to the sight of Mara driving her fist into the gut of the bounty hunter who had just punched him. Her eyes gleamed bright yellow even in the dim light, and Luke’s fear devoured him. “The prisoner is **mine** to break. That was the deal.” Mara’s face was a rictus of anger as she spoke._

_Where their bond should have been, there was only silence._

_Silence from their bond, and silence from the Force._

_“You presume to dictate to agents of the Empire what to do with **our prisoner** —” the Inquisitor accused, drawing himself up to his full height._

_“ **My** prisoner,” Mara snapped. “A fact you would do well to remember, before I am forced to demonstrate why **I** was the Emperor’s Hand, and **you** were a common Inquisitor.”_

_The Inquisitor’s gaze hardened, but Mara continued without stopping. “ **I** captured him where you never could, with the understanding that Luke Skywalker is mine to break. And mine to Turn.” She paused, then laughed, the malice in her voice echoing against the stone walls of the cell. Even in the beginning, Luke had never heard her sound so cruel. “Or do you think you can bring the strongest Jedi in the galaxy to our side yourself?”_

With a gasp, Luke rocketed upright, suddenly awake. He could feel the hard stone bunk beneath him. He could still hear Mara’s laughter and the pain it promised.

But no, no, that wasn’t how it happened. Luke tried to force himself to stop hyperventilating, and only half-managed.

That wasn’t how it happened. He had been on the plan. Mara had just been pretending. The bond had been silent, yes, but only so she could keep herself from reacting to his reactions. The burning yellow of her eyes had been colored contact lenses.

He’d put on those binders himself. And they while they had worked in the dream, in real life, he’d sabotaged them before putting them on. He’d never been helpless.

He and Mara had been in on it together. She hadn’t betrayed him.

She’d had to do some painful things in order to keep up the charade. But only with his permission. And she’d hated it far more than he had.

After that first punch, she’d never let anyone else lay a hand on him.

He’d never been helpless.

Mara hadn’t Turned.

Finally, his breath slowed to a normal pace. Slowly, carefully, he opened his eyes.

And immediately met Mara’s.

Green. They were green.

 _Luke,_ she was thinking at him loudly, _I’m here, you’re safe, things are hard but you’re safe, we’re fine, we’ll be fine, I’m here—_

Slowly, Luke breathed, wishing he could inhale her litany, take it into him at let Mara’s love chase out the remnants of the nightmare entirely.

It wasn’t that easy, but Luke would manage. Her voice helped, soothing and caring and exactly as it should be.

It was just a nightmare. He’d be fine. It might take a few more minutes, but it would be.

After flicking his eyes to make sure that Volyn and the Inquisitor were both still asleep, Luke smiled at her, trying to make his body language reassuring as he could. She seemed to get the message, relaxing as her litany slowed. Since she couldn’t reach his mind, hear any reassurances he did send, that would have to do.

Luke’s only hope was that she didn’t guess what he’d been dreaming about. She was trying not to let on, but that Luke knew her too well: she was beating herself up about the mission enough already. Even though he’d agreed to it, even though she’d done the best she could have.

The last thing she needed was more reason to feel guilty.

\---

“So the asteroid belt was hard…and the asteroid belt after that, and the one after that. But it’s not like any of them were harder than Beggar’s Canyon. So how does that count for experience with evasive piloting?”

Sure, Luke had to act evil more than he wanted to, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get caught up in a rare, brief rapport and genuine reminiscing with his father. Especially since him doing that on occasion was helping keep Mara safe.

But Anakin Skywalker didn’t make another gently teasing retort about genetics and flying. Instead he stared straight at Luke, gaze suddenly uncertain. “Beggar’s Canyon?”

 _Oh, shit_. That probably explained the look. Beru and Owen hadn’t told him much about Anakin Skywalker, but they’d certainly established that he’d grown up on Tatooine, unless that had been a lie too.

Grown up on Tatooine, until he was freed from slavery at the age of nine…

Yeah, Luke could see why his father might have bad memories of the place. But he couldn’t exactly back up the revelation. “Yeah. I grew up on Tatooine.” Since the Jedi apparently took children at birth—and hadn’t _that_ been a surprise—he wasn’t sure how he could explain where he grew up. But since they also outlawed having children, maybe there was a chance Anakin would just accept it…

Anakin’s face grew pale. His eyes were suddenly distant and horrified. His mouth trembled, like he was about to say something, then couldn’t quite, then— “Luke.” His voice was astonishingly gentle, even in the throes of what seemed to be terror. “How old were you when I died?”

Oh.

Hence the terror, then.

Luke swallowed. “What makes you think you died when I was young?”

Abruptly Anakin’s tone was less gentle. “Because you would have been raised on Tatooine over my dead body.”

That was…news.

Luke wanted children someday. He and Mara had begun prodding around the edges of the idea. And still at that early stage, even the _thought_ of dying so young, of being unable to be there for his children, to see them grow…

“I’m sorry, Father, but I’m not sure I should tell you that.” Because after all, he hadn’t been raised on Tatooine over his father’s dead body—just in his father’s ignorance. And he didn’t want to have to lie about that, too.

“Please, Luke,” his father said, imploring but once again shockingly gentle from the man who had once become Darth Vader. “I know it happened in your past, but now you have the chance to _change_ the past. You can change all of it.” Anakin’s face fought a brief battle with itself, then he continued. “Whatever war and atrocities you’ve seen, whatever you’ve suffered, they don’t have to happen. You can grow up with me and your mother. You can make the galaxy a less painful place.”

It was a long moment before Luke could say anything. He debated leaning into his cover, proclaiming something about how he was already working to do that by serving Mara, but…he couldn’t bear to. “I’m sorry, Father.” And he truly was.

\---

All things considered, Luke thought that he’d done an admirable job of not reacting when Old Ben’s Force ghost appeared in the hallway outside his cell, serene and blue-tinted as ever.

The bounty hunter and the Inquisitor presumably couldn’t see Ben, since they were continuing to sit there, bored as ever—the Inquisitor muttering threats under his breath, the bounty hunter lying back on the bench and staring up at the ceiling, legs kicking occasionally. The bounty hunter wouldn’t be able to see Ben, and Luke kinda got the impression the Inquisitor wouldn’t be disciplined enough to hide a reaction—and that he definitely wouldn’t bother even if he could.

Mara, however, definitely knew. Luke could feel her attention sharpen when he reached for her mind, and after a moment she casually shifted her position so that she’d be able to look at Ben full-on. Luke, conveniently, had already been sitting against the back wall of his cell and staring into the corridor. And since Ben had appeared right in front of him, he didn’t have to fake shifting non-suspiciously after all.

“I’m sorry our communication must be so one-sided at the moment,” Ben said, face fixed in a gentle smile. “Nevertheless, it’s very good to see you, Luke. And Mara Jade,” he said, turning to her, “it’s a pleasure to formally make your acquaintance.”

Mara inclined her head in acknowledgement, then rested it on her fist to cover the action.

“I know you’re both in a predicament at the moment,” Ben continued, and Luke had to keep himself from snorting. Yeah, predicament: stuck in the past, no idea why, no idea how to get home, no idea if they _could_ get home, no idea if they could change the past, and unable to try because they were locked up and stuck pretending to be Sith Lords. Yep, predicament was one way to put it.

Maybe Ben could sense the general direction of his thoughts because the old Jedi’s smile deepened. “I’m afraid I have no explanation to offer you—I’m as ignorant as to how I ended up here as you are. All I know is that the Sith Temple pulled everything standing in its entrance back through time. And, unbeknownst to you, that included me. However, while I may not have an explanation, I do have a plan. One that I think may help alleviate some of your…difficulties.”

At that, Luke couldn’t stop himself from smiling, just the slightest bit. He had missed Old Ben, and for all he had only known the man for a few days in life, had seen him rarely in the afterlife, having his first teacher back—having someone to look to, someone familiar with the time—was a welcome surprise.

\---

 _You’re kidding_ , Luke projected at Ben, his jaw clenched tight in the effort to keep it from falling open.

He trusted Ben, but no part of this sounded like a good idea.

“No, Luke, I’m not kidding,” Ben said. “I assure you, it will be perfectly safe. I’d hardly want to harm my younger self, now would I?”

_You just told me to attack him at full strength! How is that not going to harm him?!_

“I know I just told you to attack him, but I promise you, he truly won’t be harmed,” Ben replied, the repetition for Mara’s benefit, given that the inhibitors prevented her from hearing Luke’s projections.

Luke’s mouth tightened. He trusted Ben. He really did. But this was a lot to ask. _Even assuming I can win a fight against you, which I am definitely unsure of, I am not sold on this idea._

“Mara?” Ben asked. “Luke doubts he can win the fight, to which I would point out that he doesn’t have to. He just has to hang on long enough. But he’s still not sold on the plan. What are your thoughts?”

Mara might not be able to hear Luke’s projections, but both Luke and Ben could pick up her surface thoughts through the Force. And when she wanted to, she could easily discipline her mind to constrain her surface thoughts to her responses alone.

 _I think it’s risky,_ she said, _and significantly more ruthless than I expected of you_.

“Oh?” Ben asked, expression neutral.

 _I’m sure you know enough of my history to know why I have a problem with this plan. But unfortunately, you’re correct: we don’t have a lot of options. We can’t escape until we find the locations of the children the Inquisitor kidnapped. But we also can’t do anything to affect the past from in here. I’m not sold on the idea that we can change it, but it would be stupid not to try. And in the meantime, if the Jedi lose patience and decide to execute us, we don’t have the resources for me to be confident in our ability to escape_.

Ben frowned. “You’re right, I do understand why you’d object. But I also know what I would do to keep the future from happening. What my past self would allow to happen, if he knew.”

 _I notice you’re not trying to convince me the vaunted and peaceful Old Jedi Order won’t execute us,_ Mara thought a touch too loudly.

Ben answered with a sigh. “As much as I’d like to reassure you both that you’re safe, the Order very much has a zero tolerance policy for those who have Fallen, much less Sith. And they do not believe that a return to the Light is possible.”

Luke snorted faintly. Between Ben and Yoda’s comments during his training, he’d very much noticed.

 _Convenient that enabling you to achieve this plan is the only way to keep ourselves alive._ Mara’s mental voice was tight—but then, it had been tight for weeks, since they had first decided that the only way to save thirty-six kidnapped, Force-sensitive children was to have her pretend she still maintained her loyalty to the Empire. To have her pretend to torture him almost non-stop for ten days, until he had supposedly broken and Turned.

“Convenience wasn’t my goal,” Ben answered, eyebrow raised. Then he continued, much more gently, “Mara. You were right to assume I would know why you dislike this plan. To tell you the truth, I’m not particularly fond of it myself. But I promise you: I am not like Sidious.”

Mara’s whole body tensed, even moreso than Luke’s did. Luke knew her well enough to suspect that it was in reaction to having her past vulnerabilities acknowledged. As for Luke himself…Mara should not have had to be told that. Should she? Ben had passed into the Force—or so Luke had thought—only a few days before Luke had met Mara, so they’d never talked before. But hadn’t she believed his stories about Old Ben? Hadn’t she moved past the Imperial propaganda about the Jedi?

 _Even if you thought you might be, you’d never admit it to us,_ Mara retorted, her eyes burning, her body ready to snap up at a moment’s notice. She looked like she was about to pick a fight.

Luke closed his eyes, just for a moment. Of course she did. That was how she reacted when she felt threatened. Especially when those threats were emotional.

Mara didn’t think Ben was like Sidious, not really. That wasn’t what this was about.

And after everything, he couldn’t even comfort her.

He sighed. Having to do this through Ben might not help, but… _Ben, please tell her I said I know she’s not anything like Sidious either_.

Ben blinked. So maybe he hadn’t read her quite that well. But then, from what he'd said, he'd only checked in on Luke very sporadically, and he and Mara had never spoken. “Forgive me, Mara, but Luke requests that I tell you that he knows you’re not anything like Sidious either.”

Mara’s gaze whipped around to Luke, subtlety forgotten in her shock. And anger. Mara had never reacted well to having her insecurities made public. But after what felt like years of staring at his face, Mara’s expression softened. _Thanks, Farmboy._

With a long, deep breath, Mara centered herself, and when her exhale finished, she thought, _I’m sorry, Ben. That had very little to do with you_. Another breath. _I’m still not fond of the plan, but I can be pragmatic. And besides, it’s not my help you need._

Luke grimaced. And that brought them back to his problems with the plan. _I get why you suggested this, Ben, but you still need to convince me. And you had better explain every single detail of how this would work_.

\---

The day after Ben’s proposal, Mara was taken for interrogation first.

Her interrogator looked like he’d swallowed a large and foul-tasting insect, one that kept squirming in his mouth.

“It seems I owe you a thank you,” Anakin Skywalker said.

Darth Vader was thanking her. Maybe they really were in an alternate universe. Maybe a giant rainforest was about to spring up on Coruscant.

Mara, heroically in her opinion, resisted the urge to needle him. “Oh? For what?”

…Mostly resisted the urge to needle him.

Skywalker’s face contorted again before he sighed. “For the advice about my son. Which you knew.”

“So what, it worked?” she asked, intonation as if she didn’t already know and was ever-so-slightly bored at the thought of learning.

“Somewhat. I guess he responds really well to someone not yelling at him and torturing him, after all this time.”

Yes, he would, even if it wasn’t his father. Luke had regularly informed her that he didn’t resent her for the charade, back when she’d actually been pretending to torture him. But while he could still hear her thoughts, with the cuffs on, she couldn’t do the same. Luke had to have noticed her discomfort, but thankfully he didn’t seem to regard Old Ben as an appropriate mediator for all conversations about her insecurities.

The fact that Luke didn’t hold it against her was, in fact, a Force-given miracle.

But she certainly couldn’t let any of that on to Anakin Skywalker. “I told you he would. So, I get a stay of execution?”

Skywalker’s expression of disgust returned in full force. “Here I am trying to be a decent human being,” he complained, “thank the Sith Lord, just a little bit, and what do I get?”

Skywalker clearly didn’t expect a response. Mara gave him one anyway. “You get me not taking immediate and aggressive measures to solidify the loyalty of my apprentice.”

“You’re in a cell, you can’t hurt him anymore—”

“I hope you’re not so naïve as to believe that I need a weapon or the Force to hurt him.” Mara donned her most chilling smirk. After all, it wouldn’t do to let Skywalker get overconfident. And she had a cover to maintain.

\---

Luke braced himself as he was pulled out of his cell for interrogation. The interrogations were a daily occurrence, still, and not a particularly pleasant one.

However, while they were all still interrogated daily, four days without success had led the Jedi Council to hand the case off to a few primary investigators, while the rest went back to the business of war.

Both conveniently and very uncomfortably, they’d been left to the same Jedi that had spent the most time in their company, and thus presumably had the most experience with them: Anakin and Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan was interrogating him alone that day, with the exception of one temple guard in the room. And whichever Council member Luke suspected was hiding behind the one-way mirror. It presumably wasn’t Anakin, since he’d hauled Mara off to her own interrogation, but even while tamping down his presence in the Force, Luke could feel that _someone_ was there.

“Now,” Obi-Wan began, “how about today we talk some more about this supposed future of yours?”

“Well,” Luke smirked, “you can ask.”

It was frustrating, really. For days he’d been debating the pros and cons of telling the Jedi—or at least telling Obi-Wan—the truth about the fact that he wasn’t super brainwashed and evil. And just as he had finally been working up to the decision that it was worth the risk, he couldn’t. Not without interfering with Ben’s plan.

Ben’s plan could well preclude any attempts to make nice with the Jedi Council later on. But it was also a much surer bet than convincing them. For all Luke still kind of thought it was a terrible fucking idea.

“Very well,” Obi-Wan said, expression frozen neutrality. “What led to the decline of the Jedi Order?”

“Don’t know much about that.” It wasn’t even a lie—the records from that era had all been erased, suppressed, or destroyed.

Obi-Wan wasn’t impressed. “Then what you _do_  know.”

Well, maybe Luke could give his first teacher something of a warning. Maybe it would do some good. “The Sith.”

Obi-Wan’s mouth tightened just the slightest bit.

“And how, exactly, did the Sith bring about the downfall of the Jedi?”

Luke forced his demeanor to stay nonchalant. “There was killing involved.”

“When did the downfall of the Jedi Order occur?”

Luke let himself sigh out loud. It was plausibly in-character for him at the moment, and this would be a very long interrogation. It would behoove him, after all, to wait to make his move—and if he was very, very lucky, waiting would bring him a moment in which Obi-Wan was the slightest bit frustrated, the slightest bit less on guard.

\---

“What do you know about the end of the Clone Wars?”

Luke shrugged.

Obi-Wan hadn’t taken an inch of focus off of Luke the entire time. Too busy reading Luke’s body language, looking for the slightest hint of the future, the slightest indication of a lie.

After all, the binders were supposed to hide his presence in the Force in a way that Luke had spent the past two and a half weeks imitating. Obi-Wan would discern nothing that way. And the fact that Obi-Wan thought the inhibitor cuffs were working was Luke’s only chance.

“When did the Clone Wars end?”

“Nineteen BBY.”

Obi-Wan raised an eloquent eyebrow. “Nineteen BBY?”

“Before Battle of Yavin.” Luke smiled, the memory of that day lending it the cold he currently needed. “We got a new calendar system.”

“And I don’t suppose you know the date in Republic Years.”

“Well,” Luke started, then he lunged.

Obi-Wan jerked back, but not enough—he hadn’t realized Luke had broken the cuffs binding his legs to the chair, or the chain linking the binders on his wrists. Luke grabbed Obi-Wan’s arms, slammed into his chest, and shoved forward, tackling him across the table.

Obi-Wan was trying to shove back with his arms, with the Force. But Luke had him by the forearms, giving him the superior leverage. And in the Force, well, the fact that his raw strength was greater than Obi-Wan’s was the entire point of this.

The Temple Guard grabbed at Luke’s shoulder, presumably ready to pull him away from Obi-Wan so he could safely be stabbed, but the second he made contact, Luke lashed out with the Force, slammed the guard against the wall, and kept them pinned.

He could hear frantic motion, slamming, from behind the glass, but all he could think about was his own fight.

Obi-Wan tried to twist his arms out of Luke’s grasp, succeeded in getting one knee under Luke’s stomach, then the other, started to shove him _off—_

That was when Luke grabbed every shred of the Force he could muster and shoved it into Obi-Wan’s mind.

Obi-Wan froze. Then his limbs seized, contorting wildly against Luke’s pressure, then in the direction Luke had been trying to wrestle him, then out again, then sideways. Obi-Wan’s mind contorted in the same rhythm, his shields distending, trying to shove off Luke’s presence, to fold in on themselves and keep him from breaking through.

Breaking down the shields of another Force sensitive without shattering their mind was a complicated and subtle task. It was also something Luke didn’t know how to do.

Luckily, he didn’t have to.

The door burst open, Master Shaak Ti slamming a wave of the Force into Luke’s side, one he only barely kept from dislodging him.

There was a flash of blue in the corner of his eye. Luke couldn’t look up from Obi-Wan’s body, not while keeping up the massive influx of the Force and stopping the man’s limbs from thrashing free. But he could see the wrinkled hand of Old Ben, invisible to all but Luke, smooth out Obi-Wan’s forehead before the Force ghost placed one hand on each of Obi-Wan’s temples.

Obi-Wan jerked harder at the new Force presence, arms and torso and legs pushing up with all his strength. Shaak Ti’s pressure in the Force hadn’t ceased, coming up against his side, maybe hoping to outlast him—

Then a tendril of the Force shot up under his chest without any warning. Luke slammed back-first into the ceiling.

But it didn’t matter. The last of the blue glow next to Obi-Wan’s head trailed away, and Old Ben was gone.

Obi-Wan’s limbs seized again, then dropped, and he fell into unconsciousness.

Three more Temple Guards rushed into the room, lightsaber pikes ignited.

“I surrender,” Luke forced out, finally having gotten his wind back after the impact. He spread his hands flat and open against the ceiling in a show of peace.

Shaak Ti’s gaze was as predatory as a Jedi Master’s was probably allowed to get. “Yes,” she stated, “I think you do.”

\---

Luke groaned in pain as he collapsed onto the bench at the back of his cell. The fight with Obi-Wan had left him almost as bruised as the impact with the ceiling, and the unceremonious shove the temple guard had just used to push him into the cell hadn’t helped.

And that wasn’t even starting on the intense, violent discomfort of being imprisoned in working Force binders.

He’d lost access to the Force before. Shortly after meeting Mara, he’d had to learn to live without it more long-term, and managed to survive a week-long trek through a hostile forest. He could function without the Force well enough.

But it would never, ever stop being unnerving. At no other time did Luke feel so limited, so cut off, so unable to perceive; even before he had learned to use the Force, he had drawn on it unconsciously, used it to interpret the world around him.

Mara had been dealing with this for four days already.

With both of them in Force binders, he and Mara were cut off from private communication completely.

Mara wasn’t back yet—presumably still in her interrogation, and hopefully not worse off for what Luke had done. She had agreed to the plan, same as he had, but…

But the plan had already caused enough pain. Especially to people he cared about. And it would be naïve to assume it wouldn’t cause more, that Mara wouldn’t be questioned more harshly, that Volyn and the Inquisitor wouldn’t demand to know what he was planning, that Ben wasn’t at risk of being found out. That Ben’s younger self wasn’t in pain from the attack, and wouldn’t suffer the consequences of what they’d done.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to my wonderful beta, SapphiraBlue. Also thank fucking god it's the weekend.
> 
> Leave a comment, make an author happy!

Obi-Wan was sitting on the exam bed of a private room in the Healing Halls, Master Che sweeping various scanners over him, when Anakin burst in.

“Are you alright?” Anakin demanded before he was even fully inside the room.

But Obi-Wan just summoned up a tired smile, well used to the antics of his former apprentice. “I’m fine, Anakin.”

“We’ll see about that,” Master Che said, and promptly poked him with a needle.

“What does that mean?” Anakin asked, alarmed.

“Just that they have some more tests to run,” Obi-Wan soothed, even as Master Che drew up the syringe’s plunger and sucked out his blood. Force, but he disliked the Healers’ Hall. “Isn’t that right, Master Che?”

Vokara Che, to Obi-Wan’s relief, did grunt and nod, before withdrawing the damn needle and leaving the room. Her parting instructions to, “Stay there, or _else,_ ” Obi-Wan could fully admit he deserved.

When he turned back, Anakin was awkwardly hovering, leaning in toward Obi-Wan like—like he wasn’t sure whether he was allowed to approach.

“I’m fine, Anakin.” Obi-Wan smiled again, this time more gently. “I was merely caught off guard.” He patted the exam bed next to him in invitation.

And Anakin did sit down, although he was quite uncharacteristically hesitant. “Master Ti told me you blacked out from the attack.”

“Only briefly. It’s honestly nothing to worry about. I promise that I’m not secretly maimed, and if I was just made the victim of some arcane Sith ritual, I think I would have noticed.”

Anakin’s grown intensified. “You can’t just assume that! These are _Sith_! _Time-traveling Sith_! Who knows what tricks they have? Sure, they _say_ they don’t know how they got here, but they _admitted_ that they were at a Sith Temple right beforehand!” Anakin took a long, deep breath. So he had remembered at least _some_ of his meditation and self-soothing techniques. “Master, are you just trying to reassure me, or are you honestly not worried?”

“A bit of both, if I am to be honest,” Obi-Wan replied. “Yes, it is alarming that the Force gave no warning of the attack. But I could feel what Luke was doing up until I passed out. He overwhelmed my shields, yes, and I'm embarrassed to say that I might have lost control under the onslaught enough that they became the slightest bit porous. But at no point did he enter my mind.”

“Master, you _just_ said he overwhelmed your shields—”

“And I was very worried,” Obi-Wan said, “until they finished the psychic examination. But the Healers have certified that there’s nothing in my mind that isn’t me. Whatever Luke’s goal was, Master Ti must have stopped him in time.”

Although, actually, he was oddly calm about the situation, even given his long practice at Jedi sere—

But at Luke’s name, Anakin had tensed. And Obi-Wan’s previous thought was swept away and forgotten completely. “I’m so sorry, Anakin,” he breathed. “This must have been especially hard for you to hear about.”

Anakin just glared at the floor. “Don’t be stupid. You’re the one that got attacked.”

“Yes, but for all the Jedi Code has to say about attachment, he’s still your _son_ —”

“Exactly!” Anakin burst out. “It was my son that attacked you! You should hate me for this, for breaking the Code, and for—” He choked himself off and kept staring at the floor.

 _Oh_. “Oh, Anakin. Of course I don’t hate you. You had nothing to do with Luke’s actions. We are responsible for our own decisions, not for those of the people around us. Luke being your son changes none of that. We are more than our families and our blood.”

At that, Anakin tensed, and Obi-Wan feared he’d misstepped. But all Anakin said was, “Of course, Master. You’re right.”

The two of them sat in silence until Master Che came return to announce Obi-Wan’s release.

\---

Perhaps shockingly, the first person Anakin Skywalker came to interrogate wasn’t Luke. It was Mara.

“ _What did you tell him to do?_ ” Skywalker ground out as soon as he shoved her into the chair.

“Nothing,” Mara replied, ready to react to the slightest hint of an attack.

“Don’t lie to me,” Skywalker sneered, leaning over the table and into her face. “All your claims that I can rehabilitate him, but I approach him, start to reach him, and two days later he attacks a member of the Council. So what was it: attempted escape, revenge, or you trying to get your apprentice back?”

 _Can’t it be all three?_ Mara bit down on the urge to say, because provoking Skywalker in this state could be fatal. Luke had told her that Obi-Wan had passed out when Ben had entered him, and had still been unconscious when sent to Medical.

Mara could sympathize with Anakin’s fear of losing his Master. She imagined the fear of losing his Master to his own son made the situation even more painful.

Whatever had happened between Anakin and his Master in the end, Anakin was lucky Obi-Wan had never died during the Clone Wars. Even from what little she had seen of them together—although with all of the interrogations, she had seen plenty of them separately—she could tell.

It had taken her years and years to admit that she was lucky that the Emperor had.

“It wasn’t my idea,” she said instead. “You know that. You would have heard if I’d told him to do anything.”

Anakin scoffed. “Please, we know he broke his Force binders before the interrogation. I’m not stupid. He picked it out of your mind.”

Anakin wouldn’t believe her sincerity, even if the binders didn’t block him from feeling it.

“It was Luke’s plan.”

“Luke says he’s loyal to you alone.”

Unfortunately, he had done so quite emphatically. “Luke didn’t tell me about it. He was trying to surprise me. To please me.”

“You’ve poisoned Luke against the Jedi, against me!”

Mara couldn’t let him dwell on that thought any further. “What do you want in exchange for my life?”

Skywalker blinked. Then: “Luke.”

Luke wasn’t a thing that could be given. Mara didn’t lash out; Skywalker was only conducting the conversation on the terms she’d set. “I can’t make him renounce the Dark Side. But I will not obstruct your overtures, and there will be no repeats of today’s episode.”

Or at least, there had damn well better not be.

Skywalker’s mouth tightened. “Not good enough.”

“Information,” she tried. “Actual information, not more bullshit evasions. Information on Luke’s life. All the things he won’t tell you.”

“And you know so much about Luke’s life?” Skywalker sneered.

Well, yes. But she could hardly admit why. “He’s a public figure in my time,” she shrugged. “And as an Imperial agent, I had access to the files on his life.” No need to mention the supposed torture, nor the actual assassination attempt.

Skywalker’s eyes narrowed. “Fine. What do you have that’s worth me giving you the benefit of the doubt on this, after everything?”

Mara was tempted to offer information on the fall of the Republic or the Jedi, to try and give them some kind of warning. But while the increased scrutiny that would bring might be good for keeping her alive, it would not be good for her cover. And besides, that wasn’t, in that moment, what Skywalker wanted.

What in Luke’s life would be both valuable enough and safe to give? The information that he was a twin was valuable, certainly…but she wouldn’t risk giving that to the man who might still become Darth Vader.

“Is there anything you want to know?” she asked. If not, she’d manage to come up with something. “Anything Luke has refused to tell you?”

“Actually, yeah.” Skywalker’s blue eyes gleamed in the interrogation room’s harsh light. “When did I die?”

“That’s not about Luke.” Had Luke said something? Tipped him off? Told him outright, despite the plan?

“Sure it is. He told me he grew up on Tatooine. Now, since I would have let him grow up there over my dead body, I want to know how young he was when I died.”

 _Fuck_. The full truth was an unacceptable risk. But the wrong lie could be moreso—what might Anakin Skywalker be willing to do if he was convinced he wouldn’t have to live with the consequences?

But she couldn’t give him nothing, either.

“Records from the end of the Republic are purposefully incomplete,” she began, trying to read his reaction. So far, skepticism.

Darth Vader’s identity was not common knowledge in the New Republic. Not because Luke was ashamed of his parentage, but because his sister’s position as Chief of State and her emotions regarding Vader had forced Luke to choose between acknowledging his sister and acknowledging his father. He’d chosen Leia.

The fact that the galaxy finding out their hero was the son of Vader would have been terrible for morale had not had much bearing on Luke’s decision, Mara knew, because he could be bone-headed like that sometimes.

“Anakin Skywalker’s time and place of death was not formally recorded,” she continued truthfully, “but it was popularly believed he died at the beginning of the Jedi Purges.” She could repeat what Ben had told Luke, all those years ago, but no sense in giving Vader an additional persecution complex. Or more reason to mistrust the Jedi. “Luke was born not long after the start of the Purges himself.”

Anakin’s face was bleak as he stared down at the table. “So I never lived to meet him.”

Mara inhaled slowly. She had… “It was later discovered that Anakin Skywalker had in fact survived, though not without…complications. As a result of those complications, you first met Luke when he was twenty-two years old.”

Anakin’s eyes shot up to hers. “What—”

“He grew up on Tatooine with his aunt and uncle, and that’s all I’m telling you.”

“His uncle—wait, who, _Owen_?”

“Yes, and that is all I’m telling you.”

Anakin was still sputtering. “ _Owen?_ ”

“I trust my information is sufficient?”

“What? Oh, yeah… But _Owen_?”

That didn’t look like it was going anywhere anytime soon. “Can you escort me back to my cell now?”

Skywalker did, and to his credit, he even managed to stop muttering “Owen” at various levels of confusion before they got to the cell block. Although Mara suspected there would be more to come.

\---

“Anakin, that’s—” Padmé’s voice trembled.

“I know,” Anakin said, voice muffled from where his face was buried into his wife’s shoulder. “I know.”

“Do you…do you think—” Padmé’s voice choked off for maybe the first time Anakin had ever heard. “Do you think the future can be changed? That we can make sure our son grows up with us?”

What never of them would acknowledge out loud: Padmé would never have let their son be raised on Tatooine either, not after all that the planet had done to Anakin. And Luke hadn’t said a word about his mother one way or another.

Clearly, in whatever future they were from…she had died too. The knowledge was almost more than Anakin could bear.

“It better be possible.” He swallowed. “If the Jedi had had a bunch of Sith come back in time and explain our destruction, it wouldn’t have happened. So it _must_ be possible.”

Padmé clenched him tighter, but said nothing. Even if they could change their future and save themselves, save their son’s future, it wouldn’t save the version of their son already in front of them.

It was minutes before the silence was broken again, Padmé’s voice low and hoarse. “The Sith said he was redeemable. Do you think she was lying?”

Anakin’s hands fisted in the smooth fabric of his Padmé’s nightdress as he hugged her tighter, feeling the press of her loose hair against his face. “I don’t know,” Anakin said, despite his throat trying to close at the mere decision to admit it. “But I’m not giving up on him.”

Padmé only squeezed him tighter. Then, after several long minutes, she took a deep, bracing breath and straightened the tiniest bit.

Anakin’s gut clenched at the thought of letting go, of being alone with all of this, but Padmé only loosened her embrace a millimeter, and stopped there. “If he’s willing to attack Obi-Wan,” Padmé said slowly, “he’s Fallen much further than Vexion had led you to believe. Particularly given the character traits and loyalties one would assume of the Master of the Jedi Order.” Anakin could feel Padmé twitching against him as she said that.

The revelation had been even weirder for her than it had for him, Anakin knew, and he—well, he found it pretty damn unfathomable. He couldn’t sit in front of the Council for five minutes without wanting to scream, some days, and his kid—his _son_ —would be the new Windu and Yoda combined, what with everyone else dead. Master of the Jedi Order.

Honestly, it was the sort of thing that sounded like Anakin’s personal hell. But his son had been married, had loved and been loved, so he had to believe that maybe, somehow, in its destruction, the Order had changed. That the title was an honor for Luke, not the condemnation that Anakin knew Obi-Wan thought his position was half the time, and that as a mere Councilor.

“Sometimes—” Anakin swallowed. “Sometimes we’ll be talking. Like what I told you about before. And I could swear it’s _him_ I’m talking to, the old Luke, the one that hadn’t Fallen. He sounds normal and sane and happy just to talk to me—”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Padmé asked after a moment of silence before slowly leading them to curl up on her plush, elegant couch without ever breaking their embrace. “You could be reaching him.”

Anakin couldn’t look at her, for what he had to stay. He stared at the woven purple upholstery instead. “I told you that the Jedi take a…different view…of Darksiders than the one Vexion is suggesting. The Jedi teach that a Fall is permanent. That there’s no way back. As far as I’ve been taught…Luke is dead, and this is the thing that killed him.”

Padmé scoffed, but Anakin could hear the fear underneath it. “The Jedi also don’t believe in love.”

“Don’t make light of this, Padmé—”

“I’m _not_. But the Jedi are not perfect. They are not even the only Force users in the Galaxy, and from what you’ve said, they would be hard-pressed to explain how anyone but the Sith uses the Force. The Jedi are a culture in addition to everything else, and with that comes its own viewpoint!” The cycle of building energy Padmé had been riding abruptly faded. “And besides,” she said more quietly, before Anakin could even figure out how to respond, “if we believe they’re right, if we don’t even give this a _chance_ , then we’re just giving up on our son.”

If more of the Jedi Council thought like that, maybe Anakin wouldn’t resent them so much. If more Senators could argue like that, maybe something would actually get done somewhere in the Galaxy.

“You’re right,” he whispered into Padmé’s shoulder. “You’re right.”

“I know,” Padmé answered, her voice the slightest hint of gentle teasing.

She was right. Anakin couldn’t give up. Not on Luke.

\---

When the door to their prison opened, it was so far into the night that it counted as morning, and Luke was still awake. He didn’t know what time it was—he never did, since they weren’t given a clock—and so he was forced to judge the hour by the intervals of meals, interrogations, and his own weariness.

Volyn, the Inquisitor, and Mara were asleep—Mara, because the two of them had been taking shifts that night. But all three bolted awake at the clicking of the door’s heavy latch.

Obi-Wan Kenobi stood there, framed by the light from the closing door, gaze sweeping over them intently.

“Well this is new,” Mara said, sounding wry and somehow completely awake. “Surely the wise and hallowed Jedi Council doesn’t think a little disrupted sleep will be enough to break us.”

“Perhaps not,” Obi-Wan said, voice uncaring, “but I’m afraid you’re all being taken for interrogation now anyway.”

If everything had gone according to plan…

“You,” Obi-Wan said, pointing at Volyn, “you’re coming with me first.”

Obi-Wan’s manner was as business-like as always as he escorted Volyn, then the Inquisitor, out of their cells and down the hall.

When he returned for a second time, the door opened to reveal a face that was considerably warmer. “I am glad to report that your attack on my counterpart was not in vain.”

Luke broke out into a grin as Old Ben Kenobi strode over to unlock Luke’s cell, then his cuffs.

Mara’s expression, Luke could see out of the corner of his eye, was…complicated. Luke felt much the same—he had _attacked Obi-Wan_ , his old _mentor,_ a member of the _Jedi Council_ —but as he swept Ben into an embrace that the man clearly did not expect at all, he let those conflicted thoughts melt away. Ben was here. Their plan had worked. That would have to be a start.

Disentangling himself with a warm, tolerant smile and a few words of affection, Ben moved on to Mara’s cell and keyed it open.

Without Volyn and the Inquisitor there to masquerade for, Ben was a little different than Obi-Wan, Luke could see. His posture was more hunched, his movement more cautious, even his accent deeper and rounder, especially on the vowels. Tatooine was easy on no one, and neither was age. That those ravages could transcend the physical, Luke had long known. Not to mention everything that Ben had lost—the depths of which Luke was only just beginning to understand, seeing the Temple in all its former, filled, and living glory.

But then Luke couldn’t think about that anymore, because Ben unlocked Mara’s cuffs, and as Luke braced for the joy of her presence rushing back into his mind—

Mara collapsed.

\---

The Force.

A long-bred instinct registered the clang of hard metal on the equally hard floor, but distantly. Nothing in Mara cared.

She had the Force.

It was light after days in a dark, sealed vault; sound after weeks drifting in vacuum, the touch of another person after months and years alone.

The touch of the whole universe, after she had lost it.

Her head was swimming with the sensations—her perceptions weren’t blinded, not at all, the opposite. She perceived too much— _everything_ , it felt like. The chill of the air and the mind of her husband and the lifeforces of thousands of sentients around her, tens of thousands within her grasp, laughing and mourning and sick with fear and viruses and alcohol and too much joy, going about their normal days, living through days that would change their lives, all at once, all around her, above her, below her, within her—

When Mara’s perceptions drifted back into her physical body, the first thing she noticed was the press of her hands on the cold, smooth duracrete of the floor. She’d fallen to her knees. Slowly, she began to perceive with her eyes, not just the Force. Luke was crouching in front of her, hand running—yes, she could feel it, his hand on her body—through the strands of her hair.

Luke—! Their bond was open again, open to her, the way it had been open to him, the way the rest of the Force had been open to him and had only just returned to her. She flowed along the link and embraced his body at the exact same moment as she embraced his mind.

“Mara,” he whispered, voice filtering down to her as she slowly rose all the way up to regular consciousness. “Mara.”

Losing contact with the Force for short periods, due to inhibitors or those damnable lizards, was always painful, stifling, blinding—but bearable. Losing the Force for days…how had she done it, in the aftermath of the Emperor’s death, when her ability to touch the Force was more gone than not?

How had she done it? Mara knew the answer to that: _Not well_.

Speech didn’t come easy to her. Mara thought that maybe it never would again, but in the same moment she knew that thought was irrational, the product of the sudden and euphoric restoration of the Force. Of course she’d be able to talk.

And after wrestling her words to the surface, up her throat and through her teeth, she managed. “I’m here,” she whispered back. “I’m here.”

\---

Ultimately, Ben had led them into an interrogation room, though he assured them that he had wiped all of the footage from their cells.

He had ducked out to “interrogate” Volyn and the Inquisitor—or rather, to keep them from getting even more suspicious—and to give Mara some privacy and time to recover. She had made the decision to appreciate it rather than resent that he could tell it was necessary.

She was mostly succeeding in following through on that one. But when he’d coming back, when she had seen him go to bring along the Force binders she’d left on the floor where they had fallen, Mara had twitched violently despite all of her efforts to the contrary. So she could reluctantly admit that he wasn’t wrong about her having needed the time.

It had been the first time she’d had alone with Luke, unobserved, since before they’d been captured. The first time without anything looming between them since they’d started their damn charade.

“I have three goals for tonight,” Ben said, and Mara shoved her brain into Mission Mode, because that was what she did. “The first is to briefly discuss some of the logistics of our rather peculiar situation. The second is to sabotage Mara’s Force binders irreparably. And the third is to go pretend to interrogate Volyn and the Inquisitor some more and give you two some much-needed alone time.”

The thought of that was almost as amazing as being able to touch the Force.

\---

The first thing they should know, Ben had told them, was that they were indeed in their own past. The various theories in temporal physics about alternate dimensions spawning from every change, paradoxes forming at the drop of a hat—all irrelevant at best. Time was an illusion. Or maybe it was as fluid as the Force. Luke wasn’t terribly clear on that point, and by the end of the conversation had strongly suspected it only made sense if you were _part_ of the Force.

But they were in their own past, was the important part. And they had the ability to change their own future. Luke's plans of saving his father, saving the Galaxy—if they were smart enough and quick enough and probably good enough in a lightsaber fight, those plans could succeed.

In a conversation filled with vague but wise-sounding pronouncements that had given Luke incredibly vivid flashes of Tatooine and Dagobah, that was one of few points that Ben had been completely clear on.

Another was that they could get home. Ben just didn’t know how.

He was not, he had explained, omniscient—however much he might enjoy talking like it, he had self-deprecatingly joked. He knew there was a way, could feel from the way that the Force wove around Luke and Mara that they weren’t permanently anchored in the past. But what form any potential return would take, and what would happen when they emerged on the other side? That, Ben could only guess.

He had then left to give Luke and Mara some time together, and that move had probably cemented his place on the top of Luke’s list of “favorite incarnations of Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Not that he was playing favorites.

\---

“So.” Ahsoka’s brow marking was raised and her feet were swinging under the table of the interrogation room. “Who’s your mom, anyway?”

“I’m not telling you that,” Luke replied, making sure to keep his expression aloof and his voice level.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. “I was just asking to make conversation,” she said, expression approaching a pout. “Everyone with eyes knows it’s Padmé.”

Luke knew just enough about the circumstances of his birth to know that she was right. But Ben had never enjoyed talking about it, the handful of times he’d appeared, and his father’s ghost hadn’t stuck around after Endor. “Whatever you say.”

Luke sighed internally. He should probably be leaning into his cover, the way he was always supposed to be doing. Ahsoka had certainly been in the room to hear some pretty awful things, back on the ship. But lying to his father and even Ben was on thing. Menacing a sixteen-year-old that badly was something else entirely.

So was leaving a sixteen-year-old in a room with a Sith. The Temple Guards stationed outside the door didn’t change the fact that whoever had allowed this was being pretty damn negligent.

Assuming Anakin and Obi-Wan actually knew she was there. Luke was starting to get the impression that that might not be the case.

Ahsoka’s legs continued their rhythmic kicking.

“There’s something I was wondering,” she said suddenly.

“Oh?” Luke said, voice sharply neutral.

Ahsoka didn’t seem discouraged by his lack of receptiveness at all. “I saw your lightsaber, during the fight. You know, the one where you and your Empress or whatever lost and got taken prisoner. But while everyone else was fighting with a red lightsaber, yours wasn’t corrupted.”

Of course it wasn’t—everything inside Luke shuddered at the thought of inflicting that kind of violence on his crystal, of torturing it until it _bled_ — “Well,” he forced a shrug, “I had only Fallen two days before.”

“Oh, silly me, somehow I thought lightsaber corruption was higher on the Dark Side priority list.”

“It’s up there, but it’s still behind mastering maniacal laughter and picking a sufficiently evil-sounding name.”

Ahsoka snorted, and then quickly sobered. “And where, exactly, does torturing and/or corrupting Jedi padawans fall on that list?”

She had definitely heard about that, then. Luke forced himself to shrug and reply, “Somewhere in the middle.”

Ahsoka’s face soured, her mouth crinkling in disgust. “Skyguy deserves better than you,” she muttered. And then she turned and left.

\---

Anakin had planned to wait until he had Luke alone. He really had.

But the second he saw his son lounging there in his cell, laughing over some undoubtedly cruel joke with the Sith that had tortured him—

“ _This_ is who you’re giving your life to?” Anakin demanded, gesturing angrily at Vexion. “You could have been _killed_ for attacking Obi-Wan and trying to escape, but you’d risk your life on the order of the piece of shit who violated your mind and turned your life into a living nightmare?”

The Inquisitor broke out in malicious laughter. “And you Jedi say the Dark Side is weak! But look what we have wrought.”

Luke didn’t look at the Inquisitor. Instead, he stared straight into Anakin’s eyes. The colors matched almost perfectly, and Anakin was just left to be thankful for that. “I didn’t do it on her orders, Father.”

So Vexion had said before, and Anakin honestly wasn’t sure if that was worse. Anything that meant Luke was less beholden to Vexion was good, but that he had Fallen so far that he’d attack Obi-Wan on his own…

Then Luke smirked. “I didn’t do it on her orders, I did it to _impress_ her.”

That was…that was definitely worse. “ _Why_?”

“Because she deserves it, for showing me the Dark. Because she is my Master, and I would do anything for her.”

Vexion’s smirk looked like she was about to devour someone alive. Her voice, when she spoke, scorched the air. “Isn’t he _beautiful_?”

He couldn’t kill her. He couldn’t. Not here, in front of witnesses and holocams. Not when he needed to reach the son she’d brainwashed.

The Council would almost certainly execute her anyway, once they got the information they needed. It would be fine. She’d never be able to hurt Luke again.

He just had to reach Luke before the Council brought out their lightsabers. Had to Turn him back, had to _somehow_ prove that he had saved his son to a Council that didn’t even believe it was _possible_ —

He’d find a way. He had to.

Anakin sneered at Vexion. “You’re pathetic.”

Vexion leaned forward and her eyes gleamed with what, given the Force binders, _had_ to just be the lighting. “And yet,” she said, “I have what you want more than anything: your son.” She turned to Luke. “Don’t I, dear?”

Luke’s expression was reverent. But Anakin hoped to the Force he wasn’t imagining that slightest hint of conflict as Luke spoke again: “Yes, my Master.”

“Enough!” Anakin yelled. “Luke, you’re coming with me.”

After what Luke had done to Obi-Wan, Anakin was on his highest guard the whole way to the interrogation room. But Luke offered no resistance. Which was good, because Anakin really didn’t need the Temple Guards to insist on being there for the coming conversation.

Maybe it meant something that Luke followed him willingly. Or maybe it just meant that Luke had already proven his point.

To Vexion. Force, Anakin kind of wanted to vomit.

Despite all Luke had said and done, Anakin resisted the urge to shove Luke down into the chair. But Anakin couldn’t keep the intensity off his face—nor, he suspected, the betrayal—as he sat down. “Why did you do it, Luke? Why did you attack Obi-Wan?”

“I told you,” Luke said, voice level. “To impress my Master.”

“Dammit, Luke, you’re lucky Master Ti and Obi-Wan and the guards didn’t _kill_ you.”

That, finally, got Luke to blink. “If it makes you feel better,” he said slowly, “I timed it that way on purpose. I was pretty sure that Master Ti would be the least likely to kill me once I surrendered—if the attempt failed.”

“What, were you _planning_ to surrender?”

“The Jedi don’t kill those who surrender.” Luke shrugged. “I knew I might fail.”

Luke sounded way too casual about that. Added to the pretty large tactical flaws in the attack… After all, Luke had struck in a locked interrogation room instead of the hallway, where he’d be closer to the other Sith, and where the guards would be unable to all attack him at once. And with Master Ti and two guards in the room, when Anakin interrogated him alone all the time, when even Obi-Wan did often enough.

Anakin inhaled sharply. “You weren’t trying to succeed.”

At that, Luke looked uncomfortable. “Why would you think that?” he asked, in a tone that Anakin knew Obi-Wan would label as _hedging_.

“Because everything about the timing and location of the attack was so stupid!”

“I impressed Lord Vexion,” Luke said quickly. “I succeeded in what I want to do.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Anakin snarled. Then a horrible thought struck him. “ _What did you do to Obi-Wan_?”

“I overwhelmed his shields, what did it look like?” Luke bit back. “That’s what impressed my Master, proving that I was strong enough in the Force to overwhelm a Jedi Councilor of the Old Republic.”

If the Healers had found any sign of psychic injury, anything besides Obi-Wan inside his head, Anakin never would have believed Luke. But maybe he could, maybe this meant his son hadn’t Fallen so far as to actually want to hurt Obi-Wan—

“How is he?” Luke asked, something odd in his face. It was probably naïve to hope that it was regret.

“Why? Hoping to gloat to his face?”

“Maybe I’m genuinely concerned.” Luke sounded the furthest thing from genuinely concerned.

Anakin scoffed. “Well luckily for you, he was released from the Healers within a day, or we’d be having a _very_ different conversation.”

“I suppose I’ll be grateful for that, then,” Luke said, his lips oddly short of a smirk.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slightly shorter chapter this time, but hopefully the ending will make up for it. ;) Comment with your speculation about what happens next and I'll cackle and refuse to confirm or deny.
> 
> Btw, this fic is dedicated to everyone who, like me and my wonderful beta, SapphiraBlue, is gay for Mara Jade.

“So,” Obi-Wan said, eyes crystal blue and hard even as his voice was light. “That was quite the trick.”

Luke scoffed. “Unbind me, and I’ll demonstrate that it was no mere trick.”

It was, hopefully, a workable Vader impression, adapted for the fact that Luke wasn’t quite as pompous, was pretending to be a very expressive brainwashed fanatic, and also didn’t strangle people.

Hanging onto that impression, grounding himself in the memories of his Father, as horrible as most of them were, was the only way Luke knew to maintain his cover. And it let him draw a clearer, firmer barrier between himself and the things he had to say.

The pseudo-impression of Darth Vader was, somewhat perversely, helping Luke’s sanity.

He had the creeping and deeply unpleasant feeling that it wasn’t doing the same for Ben, watching the encounter from behind Obi-Wan’s eyes.

“Yes,” Obi-Wan said, “well, you’ll forgive me if I don’t take you up on that, and ask instead what, exactly, you were trying to do with that failed attack.”

“As I told my father, I was impressing my Master.”

“And as I’m sure you can deduce, I don’t find your explanation particularly convincing.”

“Yes, and I know _so many_ ancient Sith techniques, given that I anointed as a Sith approximately a day before you…stumbled upon us.”

“Yes, well, given that you were found on the site of a Sith Temple, echoes of Darkness still remaining even after you were pulled through time—which, of course, you claim to have no idea as to the cause of—once again, I don’t actually believe you.”

As far as Luke could tell, the Sith Temple actually had acted on its own, unnervingly enough. It had grabbed everything in the ruined, stone courtyard in front of the main entrance to the Temple, and dumped it all thirty-six years back in time.

That “everything” had, by coincidence, happened to include the Force ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi, silently and invisibly checking in on Luke in the midst of a very stressful situation, although Luke hadn’t known it at the time.

In response to the younger, more physical Obi-Wan sitting in front of him, Luke shrugged carelessly. “That is not my problem.”

In the aftermath of the attack, only recently released from the Healers, Luke would have expected Obi-Wan to look pained, or furious, or at least tired, sitting there and interrogating his attacker, his student’s son. But all Luke could see was blankness and iron-clad control.

It was, notably, a level of blankness that had not quite been present the previous times that he had interrogated Luke. Probably because Obi-Wan _had_ to still be suspicious of the violation. Anakin might have seemed to buy his excuses—barely—but he had also certainly told Obi-Wan. And Luke had begun to get the impression that his father had never been the most subtle, manipulative type.

But Old Ben certainly had had his moments. So Obi-Wan was presumably there because he strongly suspected that Luke had done something to him—and worse, something the Jedi hadn’t caught.

Luke just wished he could say that it wasn’t true.

Obi-Wan didn’t deserve this.

Ben had assured them that, if he had known the truth, he would have agreed the sacrifice was worth it. But Luke had still attacked Obi-Wan, arranged the invasion of his mind, and set in motion a plan that would almost certainly make the man’s life incredibly difficult.

“Explain the resounding tactical weaknesses in your attempt, then.”

“As I told my father, I was more interested in penetrating your shields than escaping. I knew it was more likely to succeed, and had a surer chance of impressing my Master.”

Ben, of course, hadn’t shown himself at all. Wouldn’t, while Obi-Wan was awake. Couldn’t, without tipping his younger self off. But Luke was sure he could hear everything.

“And why, exactly, would she appreciate _that_ more than an escape?”

“The Dark Side recognizes only strength,” Luke forced himself to say. He hoped it didn’t sound as hollow as it felt. “We can escape whenever we want, but you captured us before I could prove that strength to my Master. So I improvised.”

But if it did sound hollow, Obi-Wan didn’t react like Anakin had. He didn’t attempt to reach out to Luke, to get through to him, to try to save him.

“Ah, I hadn’t realized the Dark Side caused profound lapses in tactical judgment—my mistake. But do continue with your very convincing explanation.”

Luke sneered, somehow. “And what do you think you know of the Dark Side?”

“Enough,” Obi-Wan answered, voice firm and expression almost…regretful. “Enough to know that your presence will only ever cause Anakin pain. Enough to know that Luke Skywalker is dead, and you’re what killed him.”

Luke wasn’t sure he managed to keep himself from blanching. He shouldn’t have been surprised, given the conversations he’d had with Ben and Yoda when he’d discovered the truth about Vader. He knew that was what the Jedi believed. But to have it pointed at him, and from a version of _Ben…_

It was going to be a very, _very_ long interrogation.

\---

“Not that these planning sessions aren’t helpful,” Mara began, their second night being spirited away to the interrogation room in the dead of night. The first thing Ben had done the first night was to unlock and disable their binders, an incredibly welcome relief. But all efforts at planning would be moot until they had a location on the children. “But if you keep pulling us out at the same time every night, you’ll be incurring a substantial risk.”

“I’m aware it’s not without concerns,” Old Ben said, “but I believe they’re adequately mitigated for the time being. I remember enough of the Council’s security procedures to circumvent them, and a Council member’s access code deletes not only all recordings, but all traces of my activities.”

Mara raised an eyebrow. “And the guards?”

“I slipped in during the few seconds between shift changes. Luckily, they’re far more worried about keeping you in than keeping anyone else out.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Ben just smiled wryly at her. “So do I.”

He carried himself differently than the young Council member who had held them prisoner for the past week, for all they shared the same body. For all they were technically the same person. But while Obi-Wan Kenobi stood with an utterly straight posture, Ben Kenobi slumped a bit, pulled his body in on itself, like he was trying to pass for unassuming. In his actual, aged body, Mara suspected it had worked quite well—especially with the slower, more deliberate way Ben was moving, as if expecting an older frame, one far more pained and worn.

She carefully didn’t mention her any of her observations to Luke, who could probably make most of them himself, and would only be saddened by discussing them. Besides, they had so many other things to talk about.

Unfortunately, forty minutes of planning later, they had arrived at very few concrete, actionable results. At least, ones that didn’t come with massive risks of death, dismemberment, or, in Obi-Wan’s case-by-proxy, expulsion from the Order.

“You know,” Mara drawled, “we could try telling Anakin Skywalker what he’s going to become. Might scare him straight.”

Ben’s smile was small and sad. It made Obi-Wan’s youthful face look at least a decade older. “I would that it were that simple, Mara. But even setting aside the question of whether Anakin would react too defensively to believe us, there is the reaction of the Jedi Council. They do not have the highest opinion of Anakin, I’m afraid—” Mara snorted “—and given their decidedly intense fears about the four of you, I suspect they would respond quite harshly.”

“Even though he hasn’t done anything yet?” Luke asked.

“As you say. I fear it will only alienate him further.”

The set of Luke’s mouth was grim. Mara strongly suspected their trip to the past was disillusioning him about the Jedi Order.

“But that’s enough planning for now,” Ben said. “Please do make sure to practice the technique I taught you to disguise your Force signatures, but unless either of you have something you’d like to bring up, I think I’ll go take your delightful companions to some interrogation rooms, and leave you two be.”

Mara felt a genuine smile overtake her face—a rare occurrence since the start of the mission. “Thank you, Ben.”

The interrogation room wasn’t the most comfortable of places, no. But it had a table for them to sit on. And it had Luke, and the freedom to talk to him. To touch him, without pretending to inflict pain. So altogether, it was bliss.

\---

Sitting across from Obi-Wan Kenobi in an interrogation room the next day was no different from any of the previous times Mara had done it, for all she knew Ben was lurking behind his eyes. But Ben had said he would remain completely dormant when his younger self was awake, so as not to risk tipping Obi-Wan off, and indeed there was no sign of Ben.

The only reason he’d managed to remain hidden, he’d said, was that he technically _was_ still Obi-Wan, so his younger self’s mind didn’t him as a foreign entity. Which was also, allegedly, the only reason Ben was able to possess him at all.

Mara had outright told him that she was reassured to know that he couldn’t possess anyone else.

She kept her eyes fixed on Obi-Wan’s as she did her level best to push his buttons.

“You know, Luke’s never told me much about his father, and the Empire erased the Jedi from record. So tell me—is he as useless as Luke used to be, before I Turned him?”

“Useless enough to take you and your compatriots prisoner,” Obi-Wan answered. “I’m sure you remember losing that battle? Despite having superior numbers?”

Mara snorted. _Yeah, by one person_. And that had been before the clone troopers, a fact Obi-Wan was glossing over in his attempts to goad her. She and Luke hadn’t tried too hard to win the fight, planning instead to break out later if their captors weren’t what they had claimed to be. She was too practical to deny that Anakin and Obi-Wan, having trained as Jedi almost their whole lives—at a Temple that actually had complete records of the lightsaber forms—were better than both her and Luke. But she also had enough professional pride and strategic capability that she would never, ever admit it out loud.

So she refused to answer the question. “Do you know who Luke’s mother is? Is Anakin Skywalker involved with someone already?”

Obi-Wan’s eyes narrowed. “You seem to be asking an awful lot of questions about Anakin Skywalker for someone who’s already entrapped his son. Why not just ask your little minion?”

“Because it bothers you.” Mara’s smirk widened. “And who knows? Maybe I want a matched set.”

Obi-Wan sat up even straighter, somehow. Mara could practically see hackles a foot in the air. “ _Excuse_ me?”

“Anakin Skywalker is almost exactly the age Luke was when I first encountered him, you know. A year or two younger—and all the more impressionable for it. And so deliciously angry.”

Obi-Wan scoffed, but Mara was pretty sure she could detect a hint of bravado. “As if you could succeed. What do you plan to do, talk him to the Dark Side from the inside of your cell?”

Mara shrugged easily. “Sure. Why not?”

“There are many, many answers to that question, Vexion, but the primary one is your prevailing helplessness. Even the attack on me that you presumably convinced Luke to attempt failed. And that will not work again any more than it worked the first time.”

But of course, it had worked. The part of Mara that loathed this plan—and it wasn’t a small part—felt sorry for Obi-Wan Kenobi. But she ignored it in favor of pragmatism through long practice.

“You seem so confident of my helplessness.” Mara drawled, “But you know what? I didn’t convince Luke to do that. He did it on his own. To try and _impress_ me. It took me ten days to get the Master of the New Jedi Order to become so loyal he was willing to attack you, a member of the Jedi Council, in the face of almost certain failure, just because he thought it might please me.”

Obi-Wan’s face had hardened substantially. Mara pressed further, voice taunting him outright. “Sure, being unable to physically torture Anakin Skywalker will slow my progress, but, well. He’s my primary interrogator. I’ll been seeing a _lot_ of him.”

Obi-Wan scoffed in response. Despite the circumstances, Mara found herself liking the younger version of the Jedi Master. “Even if that somehow miraculously worked, which it won’t, why would you think it was a good idea? I know enough of the Sith and the Dark Side to know that you all are almost incapable of not backstabbing each other. You may have made Luke loyal to you, but Anakin is his father. Even if you succeeded, given their connection, given how essential ambition is to the Sith, what’s to prevent them from working together to overthrow you?”

Mara narrowed her eyes. “You underestimate me.”

“Yet have you not done the same and overthrown your former Master? After all, the Rule of Two has stood for over a millennium. And since you have taken Luke as your Apprentice, one might draw some conclusions.”

And despite the fact that almost all of his information about her was wrong, despite the fact that his misinformation should have rendered his attempts to dig for information on and make jabs at her and Luke and the future relatively useless, Mara felt the blow too deeply to stop her jaw from clenching, even though she knew he could see it.

 Mara had never betrayed the Emperor. Even after he’d died, she’d remained loyal to the Empire in spirit, if not quite as much in practice. Certainly she had thought of her refusal to hunt down and kill Luke as a betrayal, had hated herself so much she’d thought the weakness and illness and agony she’d been experiencing had been self-induced…

She hadn’t killed the Emperor. She’d spent years hating Luke for the fact that he had.

But these days, in her weakest moments, she hated herself for never having tried.

She’d waited too long to speak. Obi-Wan knew he’d struck a blow, but he was waiting for her to fill the silence, waiting for her to confirm or try to deny his theory. People often talked just to fill silences, and while Mara was far too well trained for that, it was a tactic she’d been on the other end of plenty of times.

Playing into Obi-Wan’s assumption could strengthen her cover. Allow her to gloat. But to leave him that misinformed on the future would be dangerous.

“I didn’t, actually,” she said. “His main apprentice killed him. Darth Sidious broke the Rule of Two flagrantly and often. So now that I’m here, before the structures of his Empire are in place…who says I can’t beat him to it?” She opened her mouth to show far, far too many teeth for a human. “As you say, the Sith are about ambition. I want a dynasty.”

Obi-Wan might have struck a blow, but she’d clearly managed one too.

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan said after just too long of a moment, “but you’ll have to learn to live with disappointment.”

\---

Four days after Luke Skywalker’s attack, two days after he had told the woman calling herself Vexion that she’d have to learn to live with disappointment, Obi-Wan still wanted to punch something.

He was pretty sure _he_ was the one actually living with disappointment. Because in the intervening four days, he had learned _nothing_ of use.

He briskly, intently, almost angrily sipped his tea as he jabbed off the datapad full of the latest Council reports and shoved it to the far side of his kitchen table. Normally, he’d have held himself back from such a display in a common area, but Anakin and Ahsoka were sparring, and wouldn’t be returning to their shared quarters for at least an hour.

The Healers had given him a clean bill of health. He had recovered quickly enough to be released within the day. The Sith— _Luke_ —had been restrained without any other injury, much less death. All of those were causes for celebration.

Yet Obi-Wan couldn’t help the itching, burning, niggling feeling that _they’d missed something_.

At least, with any luck, this would put to rest Anakin’s poorly concealed hopes that he could somehow rehabilitate Luke. It wasn’t that Obi-Wan _wanted_ those attempts to be futile, of course he didn’t. Luke’s situation was deeply tragic, and so too was the situation it had placed Anakin in. Whatever Anakin might think, he’d known Anakin was breaking the Code with Padmé. That they had had a son was… _interesting_ …and suggested that Anakin perhaps needed remedial lectures on the proper use of birth control. But the violation of the Code was in no way what Obi-Wan was upset about.

He was upset about the fact that Luke’s fate—his _death_ , for all intents and purposes—was causing Anakin pain.

It was a mess. A mess hiding something wrong with the situation, he strongly suspected, but what, he could not for the life of him figure out.

If only he wasn’t so tired, even more tired than his typical chronic sleep deprivation warranted, he might have been able to manage. It might have been easier to think.

But unfortunately, the schedule of a Jedi Councilor did not allow for naps.

Pointedly, he took another long sip of his tea. Despite its comforting, still-steaming heat, it still entirely failed to ease his headache.

\---

The Council had convened—all of them, if only in holo, but even that had become rare enough since the beginning of the war. The atmosphere was tense. Yoda’s face was screwed up into even more wrinkles than usual. And in a move that once had been rare, Mace locked the doors behind them.

Eleven sets of eyes, six holographic and five not, stared as the Master of the Order made his way to his seat. The war had made such a distribution normal, and even with three Darksiders locked up in their basement, only Mace Windu, Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Shaak Ti, and Ki-Adi Mundi were on Coruscant. That both Master Windu and Master Yoda remained was the most concession they could make to the threat they held within—especially if they did not want anyone else in the Republic to catch on.

Mace waited a long, heavy moment. Then: “Two days ago, Master Yoda and I discovered records showing that the cells of the prisoners have been accessed each night, during the guards’ shift change, at almost exactly two a.m.”

Murmurings began, mostly from those who were there in person—no amount of familiarity with holos could quite replicate the instinct to turn and whisper to the person next to you. Mace held up his hand for silence.

“These entries were authorized and the records subsequently buried using a Council member’s entry code.”

“Impossible!”

“What is this?”

“No one would—“

“Are you accusing—“

“—a spy or a traitor—“

Mace held up his hand once again. Only after a delay did he get his silence. “It’s important to note that a different Council member’s code has been used each night.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes narrowed. “It would be exceptionally difficult for anyone to acquire to one Councilor’s access codes, let alone several. But it would be exponentially more so if that person was not on the Council themselves.”

Yoda’s ears drooped as he stared directly into Obi-Wan’s eyes. “True, that is. But to believe that, we did not want.”

“Obviously,” Mace said, all business in contrast to Yoda’s sad contemplation, “those who have been away from the Temple since the meetings started four days ago are not under suspicion. Of the five of us who have been here, four passcodes have been used—all except Master Yoda’s. We don’t know if his would have been used tonight.”

“Well,” Shaak Ti said, frowning, “we might still find out tonight. Especially if it is indeed not someone on the Council.”

“Think we will, I do not.”

Plo Koon inhaled sharply, the sound made sharper by his mask. “Do you have a suspect?”

Mace’s eyes swept the room slowly. The silence was deafening as the Masters awaited his answer, until finally it came, short and damning. “Yes.”

“Then tell us!” Adi Galli called, the blue of her holo shuddering at the sudden uptick in volume.

Faces tightened further.

“I said it was at two a.m. every night,” Mace began, “but that’s not quite true. Two nights ago, the visit was pushed back to four. Of the Councilors on-planet, only two were accounted for at two, but not at four: Shaak Ti and Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Silence resounded. Eight sets of eyes refocused, flicking quickly from Obi-Wan to Shaak Ti and back again. Master Kenobi and Master Ti’s fixed their gazes on each other in absolute horror.

But before either could say anything in either accusation or their own defense, Mace spoke again. “That is not all. We also,” Mace swept his gaze slowly between the two, “have some security footage. The intruder attempted to erase it, and probably thought they were successful. But thankfully, Yoda and I secretly installed countermeasures as the war progressed, and even a Councilor’s codes cannot wipe the system backups.”

Mace continued to stare at the two, eyes narrowed, jaw clenched, hand near his lightsaber, clearly waiting for one of them to try something—

Shaak did not move, did not react, except to bare her teeth ever so slightly. But the accusation was still clear.

“Well?” asked Obi-Wan, himself remarkably poised given the situation.

Mace raised one eyebrow. Next to him, Yoda leaned forward. “’Well,’ what? It’s you on the footage, Obi-Wan. The hood of a robe isn’t enough to make you look like a Togruta.”

By the time Mace finished, Obi-Wan’s posture was incredibly strained. His shoulders were tense, his eyes tight.

After a long moment, he seemed to gather himself enough to speak.

“I don’t know what was on the footage,“ Obi-Wan said, his eyes fixed on Master Windu, but his sleeves were for once visibly shifting, in time with the hands underneath them. “But I swear to you, it was not me. I know that the idea that someone not even on the Council could have gotten these codes is—“

The words cut off. Obi-Wan’s mouth froze, still open, his body as still as his lips, until—

When his mouth moved again, it swallowed back words instead of speaking them. His whole body joined in, the physical signs of agitation rolling back into a stance far more lax than his usual, beginning to move toward a hunch, his demeanor infinitely stiller and calmer. Then, as his body stood up and walked slowly toward the center of the room, ignoring the tense gazes of Councilors on high alert: “Don’t blame the Councilor. He genuinely has no idea what happened.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was so busy repainting my apartment today that I totally forgot it was update day! But I still have 1 minute to midnight in my time zone so it still counts!
> 
> As always thanks to SapphiraBlue for the beta and support.

The room did not erupt into chaos, emotional or otherwise. They were the members of the Jedi Councilor, and even in their confusion and horror, the room was deafeningly silent. In an Order that so prized restraint, the instinct for all Masters was to slam their shields down in time of turmoil. But while none of the Councilors spoke, a distant part of Obi-Wan’s mind noted several hands gripping the hilts of their lightsabers.

The rest of his mind was too busy grasping, panicking, denying, faltering, for how his body could have spoken— _confessed_ —without him doing anything.

“Feel free to explain that statement,” Mace said.

And apparently, Obi-Wan’s body was going to comply, judging by the fact that he had once again begun talking. “Gladly.” Obi-Wan could feel the corners of his mouth pulling into a faint smile.

“I am not Councilor Kenobi. I confess, I expected I’d have longer before you noticed the security breaches. But, having been caught, I thought I’d bow out gracefully. Save you the time and conflict, and Councilor Kenobi the…difficulty of listening to you believe him guilty.”

So whatever entity had taken control of his body was considerate. How lovely.

Plo Koon spoke next, his words coming out slowly and carefully. “You are suggesting that you are not Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

“I had thought my statement was rather less equivocal than that, but yes.”

“But you also suggest,” Plo continued, “that Obi-Wan Kenobi is here to listen to us. An implication I find interesting, given the circumstances.”

“Well, he is,” Obi-Wan’s voice said, his eyebrows raising in what felt like his typical wry expression. “This is his body, after all.”

Meanwhile, Obi-Wan was…not panicking. He was not panicking, because he was a Master of the Jedi Council, and that meant he did not panic.

For all he had been subject to, both in the course of the war and in the course of his life, he had never had to experience the unique uncanniness of standing there in front of his friends and colleagues while trapped in his own body. While someone else took him over and he, unable to move, was forced to listen to his own body confess to breaking into the Temple holding cells and helping Darksiders and suspected Sith.

“Impossible,” Master Mundi said. “You will not gain better treatment by deceiving us into thinking that we will also be harming Obi-Wan.”

“There are records of possession through the Force, you know. Very, very old ones, but there are records of certain Sith artifacts able to control the minds of Jedi in various ways,” Adi Galli offered. “It might be true.”

“A record of what happened to those possessed, is there?” Yoda asked, expression thoughtful.

“I know you will likely not believe me,” whatever was using Obi-Wan’s body cut in, “but I am in no way affiliated with the Sith. Not as a creation of them, not as one of them, and not as their ally.”

“You’re right,” Ki-Adi Mundi scoffed. “That is hard to believe.”

“Considering what we caught you doing,” Mace added, his frown deepening, “he’s not wrong. While we have in fact been debating the technicalities of and evidence for whether our prisoners count as Sith, they are Fallen. And you have been helping them.”

Obi-Wan felt his body shrug, as if that accusation was something to be nonchalant about. Obi-Wan himself burned with more fury and helpless despair than was befitting his station. He wanted to attack the intruder psychically, to attempt to shove whatever it was out of his mind, but he didn’t want to risk stopping the interrogation or showing his hand too soon and putting the intruder on guard.

“Believe it or not,” the entity responded, “but I am not here to do any of you harm.”

“Oh?” Master Yoda’s voice croaked. “Unharmed, does Obi-Wan feel?”

Obi-Wan might have felt his mouth twist into the slightest hint of a grimace, but he honestly wasn’t sure. “Well,” that same mouth answered, “you can ask him yourself.”

At first, Obi-Wan felt no different. Then vertigo hit him, and when he tried to lean forward and actually _moved_ , at his own inclination, the vertigo became worse. Abruptly, he doubled over and dry heaved, his vision filled with the tile of the Council Chamber floors as his stomach painfully upended itself.

After a long minute, the retching subsided.

“Obi-Wan Kenobi, you now purport to be?”

Obi-Wan swallowed, and was abruptly hit by a wave of euphoria at being able to do so, and horror at the knowledge that he might lose that ability at any time—

Apparently even spending only minutes out of control of one’s body could induce profound effects.

“Yes, Master Yoda,” he managed, hands moving to straighten his tabards, then his sleeves—anything to keep moving.

“Unharmed, that did not look,” Yoda commented in a dry, judgmental tone, his gaze almost looking through Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan mentally braced for a second, as if being spoken to would summon the entity again. And perhaps it had, but it didn’t take over control of his body again. Instead, Obi-Wan felt a faint wave of…apology? It was not projected through his mind suddenly, but Obi-Wan, already tense, actually stumbled.

 He straightened to face the worried looks of the Masters, and more hands on lightsabers. He swallowed. “I’m sorry, I was startled. It appears the entity can mentally communicate emotions and impressions, if nothing else, which was…unexpected.” He cleared his throat. “I am intact, physically and, so far as I know, psychically. Although I would not describe myself as particularly unharmed by all of this.”

“Can you offer any proof that we really are talking to Obi-Wan Kenobi right now?” Mace asked.

It was, Obi-Wan knew, a fair question, one that Mace and the Council should definitely be asking, but _what if_ —

Obi-Wan swallowed once again. This time, his stomach managed not to rebel. “I hope this will be sufficient?” he asked, and dropped his shields to minimal levels.

Mace nodded, but didn’t otherwise respond. Instead, Obi-Wan felt himself being probed in the Force by two distinct presences—Mace and Master Yoda, he knew through long familiarity. With a breath, he kept his shields as low as he could, and forced himself to stay relaxed.

“You do indeed feel like Obi-Wan,” Mace said after a long pause. “And there is another presence inside you, one extremely well-shielded. I can sense nothing of the intruder besides the fact that it exists, and that it does not seem to be in control right now.”

Obi-Wan let out a small, careful breath. All else aside, at least they believed him.

“Sit, you will, Obi-Wan. Discuss this, we must, and that it will take a long time, I anticipate.”

With another careful inhale, Obi-Wan raised his shields half-way—enough to not flood the room with his emotions, but also enough to keep the other Jedi from being caught off guard if he were to lose control again. He tried very, very hard not to let himself think about the fact that their enemy could hear their every word. And slowly, he walked over to his chair and sat.

\---

“Skyguy!” Ahsoka shouted, having just put a lot of effort into not slamming the door to their quarters behind her.

“Yeah, Snips?” Anakin asked, putting down the mouse droid he’d been tinkering with and bracing himself to find out what _else_ had gone wrong.

Ahsoka’s answer, like her breath, came out fast and hard. “I just saw the Temple Guard escorting Obi-Wan down to the lower levels in binders! They were headed toward the old cells!”

Anakin’s breath caught. _What_ —

Apparently he’d said that out loud. “Master Mundi and Master Windu were guarding him! Lightsabers drawn and everything!”

“I—Snips, how did you see this?”

That, of all things, brought her up short. But only for a second. “Oh. Well, me and some of the other Padawans kind of badgered Master Vos and Knight Secura into giving us stealth lessons awhile back? And we were just practicing by playing hide and seek with the Force in the lower levels? Well, it was half an hour ago now, because the Temple is huge, but—yeah.”

That was the sort of thing that was not exactly allowed at the Temple, and thus something Quinlan Vos would certainly have delighted in. And probably Aayla Secura too, who was only slightly less crazy than her old Master, and considerably more so than most people thought.

“And you honestly think that none of them sensed you?”

Ahsoka just kind of shrugged. “I mean, probably? But they seemed _really_ focused on Obi-Wan. Like they were…worried he would attack them. Or something.”

Abruptly, Anakin stood. The chair scraped backwards on the floor and his hands slammed down on the surface of their small kitchen table. “I’ll be back.”

And with that, he charged past Ahsoka and out of the room, the door slamming for real behind him.

Faintly, he heard the door opening back up behind him, and Ahsoka calling for him to wait, but he couldn’t quite react. Hadn’t the galaxy shit on him enough for one week? The war, and the crazy Dark Siders, and the Sith claiming to be his _son_ , and the Council had been staring at him, judging him, finding him wanting like they always did, but that wasn’t enough, no, they had to go after Obi-Wan—

By the time he reached the lift to the lower levels, Ahsoka was walking beside him, although struggling to keep up without running. He punched the down button with a sharp exhale, but it wasn’t until they were in the lift, Anakin’s furious movement stilled by the lack of anywhere to go, that she spoke, her voice higher than usual and slow to come out: “I’m sure Master Obi-Wan will be fine.”

Anakin was trying not to be rude to his Padawan, he was, but he still snorted. “Yeah, like everything has been fine lately.”

Ahsoka shrugged a bit, as if unconsciously, as if admitting she couldn’t argue with that. But she still tried to offer reassurance—as if he was the one who was supposed to need it— “Obi-Wan didn’t look angry or afraid or anything. Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding.”

Neither of them pointed out that there were very few misunderstandings that would lead to a member of the Council being locked up like some common criminal.

Or, given what those cells were intended for, what they were currently being used for—like a Sith.

“How did he look?” Anakin asked, his voice taut.

Ahsoka’s brow markings furrowed and her eyes stared off into the distance for a few long seconds. Then, pensively: “Resolute.”

Anakin blinked, not knowing what to make of that. And so they rode the rest of the way down in silence.

\---

By the time the lift arrived—such a long time later, why did the Jedi Temple have to be so _massive_ , they weren’t even _using_ half the space—Anakin’s emotions had not quite settled, but they had honed themselves. He had moved from at ends to determined. He would fix this, he thought, stalking toward the cells, he _would_ , Obi-Wan would be _safe_ from whatever was going on—

“Ah, Knight Skywalker. That was fast.” Windu’s eyebrow was raised, but his tone was, for once, not censorious.

Anakin stopped abruptly. Windu was standing just outside the door to the cell complex where’d he’d spent far too much time over the past few days. “Master Windu,” he ground out, “I heard Master Kenobi was—“

“Arrested, yes.” Anakin forced himself not to glower. He thought it was impressive that he managed, given that even Ahsoka was twitching next to him at the interruption. But before Anakin could say anything, Windu continued, voice both strained and oddly...something that in another person, a non-Jedi, Anakin might have called gentle.

“It’s a long story,” Windu continued, “but you should know that Obi-Wan himself is not in any trouble. He is not under arrest for anything that he has done, a fact that I’m sure will assuage some of your…discontentment.”

“Then why was he arrested at all?” Ahsoka burst out before Anakin himself could respond.

Anakin could see Windu hesitating, presumably debating letting Ahsoka in on whatever it was, before he sighed. “I will tell you both, but you are to let _nothing_ slip to _anyone_. We are keeping this completely under wraps, for reasons that should soon become clear. We do not need mass panic. And if word gets out and I find out that it was either of you, there _will_ be consequences. Understood?”

Ahsoka nodded, eyes wide but determined. Anakin wrestled down his ire— _how dare Windu threaten him for trying to protect Obi-Wan_ —before grinding out. “Understood.”

Mace nodded and escorted them into an empty interrogation room on the edge of the cell complex.

“We’re not yet sure what happened,” he said, as soon as the door was closed behind them. “But here’s what we do know: someone was using a Councilor’s codes to break into the cells holding the Sith each night. They tried but failed to erase the footage. The footage showed that it was Obi-Wan.”

“ _Obi-Wan would never_ —“ Anakin growled.

“Yes, well, Skywalker, for once you’re right. As I _said_ , Obi-Wan is in no trouble. It seems that he has been possessed by some other entity, which took over his body and acted without his knowledge.”

“ _What_ —” Ahsoka gasped, her words choking themselves off.

Anakin just stared.

“That’s not…that’s not possible.”

“I wish that were the case, Skywalker. The entity revealed itself in the Council meeting. It has said nothing of its own identity, but it allowed Obi-Wan to speak, and when Yoda and I probed Obi-Wan’s presence, we could sense it inside of him. So I repeat: Obi-Wan is not in trouble. He was brought over in Force inhibitors, and left in a Force suppressant cell, only to keep the entity from escaping, and hopefully from taking control. We’ve even removed the binders now that he’s in the cell in order to try and make this easier for him. But the suborning of a Council member by means that we do not understand is a crisis situation. You would have been told soon anyway, if Padawan Tano hadn’t spotted us.” Ahsoka was clearly trying not to look sheepish. “We need you both in on the situation in order to help conceal the fact that Obi-Wan is missing, as well as to help Obi-Wan himself.”

“But—”

“And before you ask, being locked up was Obi-Wan’s idea.”

Anakin scoffed. “Like you would have given him a choice.”

Mace leveled his gaze on Anakin’s. “You’re right. We wouldn’t have. But we are doing our best to make him comfortable, and to remove this entity as soon as possible.”

Anakin said nothing.

“Now,” Mace continued dryly, “I’ll assume you want to talk to him yourself.”

\---

The first thing Anakin noticed when he and Ahsoka stepped into hallway in front of the cell was that Obi-Wan looked even more tired than usual. Maybe it was the harsh lighting and gray stone walls of the cell, maybe it was the fact that something had apparently been getting his body out of bed in the middle of the night and running off to help fucking Darksiders.

Despite the fact that he had to be having one hell of an awful day, Obi-Wan genuinely smiled to see them both, although his smile was pinched with worry. “You two got here rather faster than expected.”

Anakin snorted. “Blame Quinlan Vos.”

Obi-Wan briefly looked confused, but some of the tension left Ahsoka’s shoulders, and that was what Anakin had been going for.

“Well, I suppose Quinlan is used to me blaming him for things,” Obi-Wan replied, shrugging along with his statement.

“Master Windu told us you agreed to be arrested?” Ahsoka probably hadn’t meant it to come out like a question.

Obi-Wan’s mouth tightened. “Of course I did. I could hardly choose otherwise, when I have been—inadvertently suborned.”

“What does that even _mean_ ,” Anakin burst out, “Master Windu said you were possessed, how the Force is that even supposed to _work_ —”

“We don’t know,” Obi-Wan interjected.

“Like…at all?” Ahsoka asks.

“Unfortunately, this mysterious entity has failed to monologue about its evil plot.”

Anakin mustered up something resembling a smirk. “If only they could all be that in love with their own voices.”

Something glinted in Obi-Wan’s eye. “Indeed. Although the Force inhibitors built into the cell do seem to have forced it into total dormancy—so it hasn’t had much chance to monologue. I can’t say I’m upset about that, but the fact remains, the entity only spoke long enough to make me nauseous and save me from personally being blamed.” He chuckled bitterly. “It seems to think itself considerate.”

Anakin snorted, then turned serious, eyes dark, voice low and threatening. “As soon as we figure out how, I’d be happy to rip that thing down to shreds so small they won’t even exist in the Force.”

Obi-Wan stilled. “Would you now.”

Anakin didn’t feel his hand slamming down on the cell bars in front of him. “Of course I would! This thing will _pay_ for hurting you.”

“I fear,” Obi-Wan began, “that might not be possible. We have no records of anything even resembling this. I have discovered no way to impede it at all, much less stop it from taking control. Much as I am loathe to admit it, we need to be open to the possibility that there is no solution, or that this…entity…is the only one who knows it.”

The shadows in the room seemed to grow just a centimeter. “I refuse to accept that,” Anakin said, leaning forward, stepping to press almost up against the bars. “We will get you out of this. I will take that _thing_ and make it regret its own existence. If it wasn’t inside you, I would beat the answers out of it myself. But we will find answers. And as soon as we do…that thing will need to beg for mercy.”

Silence. Anakin continued to stare at Obi-Wan, as if he could force the thing that had invaded his master out through just the intensity of his gaze.

Behind him, Ahsoka was still in a way she rarely managed outside meditation, her gaze fixed nervously on Anakin.

Obi-Wan’s expression was unreadable.

“Well,” Obi-Wan finally said, “I suppose I’ll have to trust that you and the Council will find answers soon. After all, it is your turn to save my life.”

After a moment, Anakin snorted. “Oh, so you’re admitting I’m ahead now.”

“I’m admitting no such thing.”

With their usual banter, Anakin could almost treat this as a usual mission. Could pretend they’d improvise some unorthodox solutions and everything would turn out fine. The vice in his throat was beginning to loosen, just the slightest bit, when Obi-Wan said—

“Before we do anything else, please talk to Mace and sort out how you’re going to cover for my absence. We cannot let the involuntary subversion of a Council member become public knowledge.”

Anakin’s throat tightened again. “Right.”

“You’re gonna be okay here, Master Obi-Wan? And we can come back later? Let us know if you want anything, maybe something to read,” Ahsoka offered, almost reaching for him in spite of everything.

Obi-Wan smiled. “If you could get Mace to allow me some tea, that would be lovely. It feels like it’s been years since I’ve had a good sapir.”

\---

 _So,_ came that same damnable mental voice, old and rough and astonishingly sanguine, _does that help my case any?_

Imprisoned in his own mind, Obi-Wan could do nothing to physically react. He couldn’t clench his jaw, nor tighten his fists, nor rest his hand where his lightsaber should have been holstered. He could only do what he had done through that entire hellish conversation: try to maintain serenity despite his own helplessness, despite the imposter pretending to be him, and try to find a way out of being a sentient puppet.

 _Anakin wouldn’t_ , was all Obi-Wan said. It was true. Anakin would never—he would never. Yes, his threats had been…evocative, yes, he suspected he would have felt a chill of Darkness had he not been trapped alone inside a Force-inhibiting cell. But Anakin had always been…emphatic, in the defense of those he was close to. And struggling with temptation was not the same as a Fall.

_His threats were violent, toward one already safely contained. You saw how much he unnerved Ahsoka. You saw the hints of Darkness. You saw how easily I provoked him. That was not the behavior of a Jedi._

Anakin wouldn’t.

Anakin had been so blinded by his anger he hadn’t even realized that he hadn’t been talking to Obi-Wan. And neither had Ahsoka.

Something nasty but entirely internal to Obi-Wan whispered, _Or maybe they just didn’t care enough to notice_.

He took care to shove that thought well away from where the entity might hear it.

 _I was not lying to you earlier,_ the entity sent. _I care a great deal about Anakin. About both of them. But helping them means that you cannot be in denial about the precipice that Anakin stands on. In the future, he Falls. And unless we can change events, everything else will fall along with him._

The entity that, Force forfend, claimed to be him. From the future.

 _I don’t believe you_ , Obi-Wan replied. _I don’t believe that you’re from the future, or that you’re actually me, or that Anakin and the Jedi and the Republic will fall. It is far, far more likely that you’re some trick of the Sith—especially given that this was induced by a Sith attacking me._

There was a long silence. _We’ll work on it._

\---

Mara had been cut off from the Force before. During the years in between the Emperor’s death and the breaking of the compulsion the Emperor had placed on her, she’d been without the Force more often than not. She’d even dreaded regaining it, then—almost.

Even with the attacks, the nightmares, the hallucinations, the crippling guilt and burning rage, there was nothing quite like the Force.

To be cut off from it now, while being held prisoner, only days after she regained it, that was—

She wasn’t going to think about it.

She wasn’t.

She wasn’t going to think about why she, Luke, and the Inquisitor—since the Jedi didn’t know his cuffs were functional—were being held at lightsaber point in their cells. She wasn’t going to think about the flashing metal in Master Ti’s hands, or the fact that Master Windu and Master Koon would likely decapitate her if she made one wrong move.

In the back of her mind, she could feel Luke’s anxiety. Soon she wouldn’t be able to, but she wasn’t thinking about that either. He was trying to shield his emotions, knowing she was panicked enough, even more panicked than he, given how she’d already been about it. But he was failing.

 _It’s okay, Mara_ , he sent. _We’ll be okay_.

Mara resisted the impulse to lash out with a bitter retort. All the effort they had gone to, and it only got them four days of the ability to actually fucking talk to each other. _Well, I will be,_ she sent, teasing, _don’t know about you, though, Farmboy_.

Luke’s gentle amusement crested over her. Mara did her best to memorize the feeling, pin it down around her mind, as a new pair of cuffs sealed around the Inquisitor’s wrists.

Volyn and the Inquisitor were probably pretty damn suspicious, what with all the proceedings, but Mara would need at least two hours before she could be expected to care. She’d spin it as some sort of plot within the Jedi, or by one of their external enemies, who’d apparently thought he could get something out of the time travelers, no, of course she didn’t know what—

The Inquisitor would be easy to fool, and Volyn would be manageable. After all, it wasn’t like they could have any suspicions that a Force ghost had followed them all back in time.

 _Whoever you’re plotting against better watch out_ , Luke murmured in her mind. _Have I mentioned I love your plotting face? Very competently badass._

Luke probably needed a distraction as much as she did. And Mara wasn’t going to waste her last few moments of communicating freely with her husband.

The Jedi Councilors turned toward her cell next.

 _Everything I do is competently badass_. She shot back with the impression of a wide grin, refusing to freeze.

 _Pft,_ Luke responded, _lies. My hot chocolate-making skills are way better than yours_.

 _So that’s why you always insist on making it yourself, and here I thought you were just trying to spare me the effort_.

Mara’s cell opened with a clang, and the forcefield around it hummed down to nothing. Instantly, Master Windu and Master Koon had their lightsabers at her throat, which was suddenly dry as the deserts of Tatooine.

This, she couldn’t quite manage to quip in the face of.

_I love you, Luke. No matter what, I love you, and I am so, so sorry—_

_It’s not your fault_ , Luke sent, voice firm and serious, his sincerity and love practically shoved at her across their bond. _I know, and I love—_

The cuffs snapped around Mara’s wrist, and the Force was silent.

Biting down on her tongue let Mara keep the disorientation and discomfort from showing as the Jedi backed out of her cell, lightsabers still at ready, and locked her in once again.

Then they turned to Luke.

And Mara couldn’t say anything to comfort him, couldn’t wrap him up in her love and desire to protect him from everything going on around them. Couldn’t do what he’d done for her in her last moments with the Force, watching Master Ti bring the binders closer and closer.

And then it was done.

“You know,” Mara said, “I think I’ll use you three as kindling when I set fire to the Temple.”

None of the Masters deigned to respond, although Master Ti gave Mara a particularly scorching glare.

She collapsed straight back on the bench as the Councilors filed out of the room. But Luke didn’t—instead, Luke turned around, somewhat elaborately, to sprawl himself across the bench, using the turn as cover to mouth something—

 _I love you_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: Since a number of people have asked:
> 
> -The cuffs: As the fic mentions a couple times, Force-suppressant cuffs keep anyone from sensing the presence of the person wearing them. Thus, no one can tell when Obi-Wan loses control, and none of them expect to be able to, although for a variety of reasons they do think the cuffs and the cell suppressed Ben and that Obi-Wan is in charge all of the time.
> 
> -Also, in a fic with a good plot, you don't know what's about to happen. So please stop telling me what should happen in my fic (which is still already written btw), or worse, outright telling me that you don't think my plot makes sense because you don't think the characters gain anything from making those choices. In both (all three? idk) cases, the person saying this was wrong and if they had waited a chapter they would have found that out. Sorry to sound kind of rude, but some of the comments I'm getting are pretty rude (eg implying I can't plot my own fic). About 80% of the comments I got on this chapter have either just been nitpicking or telling me what I need to do next, and the past two chapters have been approaching that.
> 
> Also, most of the nitpicking, like the cuffs, is either something I did explain or something that you're not supposed to know yet. So, yknow, please trust that I know what I'm doing here


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Sorry for the late update--I needed to write some new material for it, and it turns out repainting your apartment is even more work than it sounds like. Next chapter will probably be late for the same reason.
> 
> On another note...lately I've been getting a lot of reviews that are literally just telling me what should happen next, and/or nitpicking very minor plot points that I've almost always already explained. And, in the case of one anon, very patronizingly telling me I don't seem to have come up with actual reasons for the characters to do the things they did (if you're reading this, anon, you were wrong in both cases). That kind of stuff made up about 70% of the reviews on the last chapter, and a lot of those reviews didn't have any positive comments at all, but it seems to be a lot of the same reviewers doing this across chapters. So sorry if it's rude to bring this up, but honestly, those reviews are pretty rude. If you think time travel fics should go differently than I'm writing mine, you can write your own. And as for a lot of the comments about things not making sense, or going in different directions than you think they should...a plot-driven story SHOULD surprise you. That is, within reason, a sign of good writing. I know in a lot of fic the whole plot is pretty clear, and no disrespect to those types of stories, but this isn't a genre/type of story that's designed to work that way, the way coffee shop AUs are, for example. So FYI right now: this fic is almost certainly not going to end how you expect. I'll clear up a couple common points of confusion from comments below, and this definitely isn't me saying you can't ever ask questions or give constructive criticism in the comments, but please think a bit more about what you're writing. Stop telling me what I should do next--this whole fic is still completed with the exception of like two scenes. And please, trust that I know what I'm doing, and give me a chance to take you along for the ride.
> 
>  **Anyway, clarifications:**  
>  -The cuffs: As I mentioned earlier on, Force-suppressant cuffs keep anyone from sensing the presence of the person wearing them. Thus, no one can tell when Obi-Wan loses control, and none of them expect to be able to, although for a variety of reasons they do think the cuffs and the cell suppressed Ben and that Obi-Wan is in charge all of the time.
> 
> -Rescuing the kids: People are worrying about them rescuing the kids to a degree that really kind of surprises me, since the rescue-the-kids plot is 100% there to justify why Luke and Mara can’t blow their covers. Like, this is a time travel fix-fic: the plot is the fixing stuff that happens in the past. So the plan to rescue the kids will be addressed, since it is central to my main characters’ motivations, but not as much is happening with it as you maybe will expect. I’ll also just come out and say that the kids will not be rescued during the events of this fic. Not that I’m killing them, just like, the fic ends first.
> 
> Anyway, thanks as usual to my inimitable beta/enabler/enthusiast SapphiraBlue, and enjoy!

“What,” Anakin growled, leaning over the interrogation room table, “did you do to Obi-Wan?”

Luke was having a profound moment of déjà vu.

“I told you that already.”

“Yeah, and that was before he started getting mind controlled by a fucking Sith, so sorry if I don’t believe you anymore.”

Luke’s stomach dropped. So that _had_ been how they had found out that the cuffs had been sabotaged. Mara would make sure to rub in the fact that she had been right when he told her, since she had assumed Ben had been caught as soon as the Jedi had come to replace the cuffs without any explanation for their detection, and without Obi-Wan, one of their primary interrogators.

Luke had been trying to be optimistic. In his defense, it had worked for him under _much_ longer odds. Like at Endor.

 _So much for that_.

Luke shrugged. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh really? You’re a Sith, Obi-Wan’s being controlled by a Sith, and it started the day you attacked him. I can do basic math.”

“Like I told your Master, I Fell two days before I got captured, and was anointed as a Sith one day before. So when exactly do you think I had the chance to learn long-lost Sith mind control techniques?”

“Perhaps your _Master_ explained it to you back when you secretly didn’t have working Force binders.”

Luke’s genuine incredulity began to make itself apparent. “Do you really think I could learn a technique well enough to successfully attack a Jedi Councilor, in four days, without having ever done it before?”

Anakin just narrowed his eyes. “Is Obi-Wan Kenobi being controlled by you or Vexion, a construct, or a separate entity?”

“How would I know?”

“Does whatever’s controlling him have any other abilities or any harmful side effects?”

They’d known Ben might be caught eventually, had tried to plan for it, but why did it have to be so _soon_?

And the Force only knew what Ben had actually told the Jedi about himself. Certainly Anakin hadn’t seen fit to provide Luke with any details, so there was no way to know whether or not Ben had said anything to associate himself with them, or the Sith, or said anything at all about any motives, real or imagined.

Luke _really_ hoped that Ben had a plan, and ideally, that his plan had more to it than “Lie to people until I can’t manage it anymore.”

Luke loved Ben. He really did. But he’d also had to cope with the results of going into Bespin completely ignorant.

And the revelation that he’d made out with his sister.

So yeah, he knew that Ben was supposed to have been a great tactician. They’d come to a true rapport after the truth had come out and Luke’s initial feelings of betrayal had settled. But that didn’t mean he liked the idea of not getting any input on the plan.

Which he wouldn’t, it looked like, since they’d apparently locked Ben up in a different cell complex than Luke, Mara, Volyn, and the Inquisitor.

From the way the Councilors had acted when they’d come to recuff him and Mara, Luke strongly suspected that Ben was locked up somewhere even more secure.

Because after all, if it was him in the position, Master of the Order dealing with Sith from without and possessing those from within…he knew who he’d consider the bigger threat. It would be the Sith possessing the person who knew all of his secrets and had access to all of his systems.

“How do we reverse what you did?”

If Ben had admitted to being affiliated with Luke and Mara, Anakin would have brought it up. He had to assume that was the case.

“Like I said. I didn’t do anything.”

Luke was enough of a Jedi that he couldn’t enjoy the thought that Anakin was learning what it felt like to have a family member hurt someone he loved.

“Did Vexion order you to attack Obi-Wan?”

“The answer is still no.”

“How did she convince you to do it?”

“She _didn’t_.”

“Did she say where she learned this technique?”

“It wasn’t her technique.”

“Is the thing controlling Obi-Wan an ally of hers?”

“No.”

“Is it a construct of hers?”

“No.”

“Could she have arranged any of this without telling you?”

“I carried out the attack.”

“Do you really think she isn’t keeping secrets from you?”

 _Oh, for—_ “Mara had nothing to do with this!”

Anakin snapped up straighter in his seat. “Mara?”

 _Shit_. All that time pretending to be tortured, and this was the part where he blew it. Mara was going to give him so much crap.

“Is Vexion’s real name Mara?”

In truth, even Mara didn’t know for sure, given that she’d only been two when Palpatine had kidnapped her. But that was not the information that his father was looking for—and it was also the information that made it safe to share.

After all, it wasn’t like he’d be able to find any information on Mara or her parents, in the unlikely event Mara had already been born—Mara’s birthdate being another thing the Emperor might have lied about.

Luke sighed. “Yes.”

Anakin looked unnervingly predatory as he leaned forward. “Does she have a last name?”

Mara wouldn’t be thrilled with him, but at least the Jedi hadn’t learned anything they could actually use. So… “Jade. Her name is Mara Jade.”

Hopefully the information, while tactically not worth much, would placate Anakin. In an ideal world it would be enough to make him go back to the levels of hostility from the first few days of their imprisonment and interrogation at the Temple.

That, Luke knew, was never going to happen. But maybe it would help a bit.

And even if it didn’t, at least he now had an excuse to call Mara _Darth Vexion_ a little bit less.

Him, using his own wife’s name. What high goals he aspired to.

\---

“Research,” Anakin groused, “I’m finally doing research, and Obi-Wan’s not even around to appreciate it.”

“More like to make sarcastic comments about whether you even know what a datapad is,” Ahsoka quipped from where she was ensconced behind a stack of datapads almost as high as her montrals. Anakin could only see her face through a gap between the messy stacks in front of her.

They’d been at it for hours, and nothing.

They weren’t the only ones searching, of course, not with a Council member in danger like this. But since the Council refused to actually tell anyone else who could help—including, inconveniently, the _archivist_ —and the Council members themselves were busy with the war, Anakin and Ahsoka were taking point.

Given how little…practice…they both had at research—or in Anakin’s case, research that didn’t involves ships and mechanics—Anakin was _seriously_ doubting the Council’s judgment.

_…the ancient Sith possessed many skills unknown to the Jedi, and among the powers of Sith alchemy was Essence Transfer, an ability that let a Sith transfer their spirit into the body of a living person or inanimate object. This travesty could only be carried out using the Dark Side of the Force. Although those subject to potential possession could resist—wholly or in part—if strong enough, overcoming the sheer power of the hostile mind and Force energy was extremely difficult, leaving…_

Anakin slammed the datapad down.

“Skyguy?” Ahsoka’s voice was hesitant. “Did you find something?”

“Yeah,” came the response, growling and dark. “Yeah, I found something. Keep researching, in case I’m wrong. But I think I know what those Sith bastards did to Obi-Wan.”

Before Ahsoka could reply, Anakin had turned and left, tunics whirling behind him. The stacks of datapads surrounding his workstation remained, and Ahsoka had no way to tell which ones he’d already gone through.

With a sigh, she tried to force herself to go back to her reading.

She strongly suspected her Master was about to do something stupid.

\---

The door to the corridor containing Obi-Wan’s cell slammed open. The sound echoed throughout the room—he was being held in one of the two cells the Order had proofed against the Sith, his cell the one immediately facing the door. They had not wanted to risk locking him up with their other prisoners, and as such, the room was empty except for him.

And Anakin, who stormed in, face like fire, and stared.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan began, somehow managing to keep his voice even. The entity that claimed to be him was letting him speak this time, but Obi-Wan knew that would change the second he tried to alert anyone to the fact that he wasn’t always in control.

It was the first time that it had let Obi-Wan speak since he had been locked in the cell and released from the inhibitor cuffs that actually _had_ suppressed the entity. Obi-Wan, feeling it unfurl in his mind, had opened his mouth to tell Mace they had to put the cuffs back on immediately, but by the time his mouth had finished opening, he’d already lost control.

Instead, he had to hear his own voice reassuring Mace that the cell worked the same way the binders did, that the entity was indeed suppressed. Mace and the other three members of the Council on Coruscant had not professed to believe that the entity was suppressed permanently or entirely, but they had believed it, and damned Obi-Wan to the prison that his own mind had become.

Although the entity couldn’t read his thoughts, all of Obi-Wan’s attempts to subtly alert the others had failed—and resulted in his permanent loss of control when in company. Until now—when his desperation had progressed just far enough that he was willing to temporarily go along with the charade. To lull the entity into a false sense of security. Or just to speak to another living being.

The entity had matched its withdrawal perfectly to Obi-Wan’s intentions. The timing lent unfortunate, painful weight to the idea that it might be Obi-Wan’s future self after all.

“Anakin, what is—?”

“ _How dare you_.”

“Anakin?”

“Don’t pretend to know me, _Sith_. I know you’re not Obi-Wan. I know about the Essence Transfer. I know you’re trying to kill his spirit and take over his body, and that if he’d managed to seize control even for a second, he would have warned us.”

And indeed, before Obi-Wan could protest, could explain that actually he had managed some resistance, that the entity hadn’t let him tell anyone, could ask about the first concrete theory he’d heard on what had been done to him—

He lost control.

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan heard his own voice reply, to his steadily growing horror. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Anakin scoffed. “Don’t bother lying. My research was clear.”

The entity raised one of Obi-Wan’s eyebrows. “Maybe it was—I’ve never heard of this Essence Transfer. If you think it could be what’s…happening…to me, I do want to hear every single detail. But I promise you, I am in control. I am not sure I could have fought it off on my own, much as I hate to admit it, but the cell has suppressed the entity successfully.” All said with exactly the intonation Obi-Wan probably would have used, if that had been the truth. It was unnerving on a level that, even in the midst of the war and its terror, he had never felt before.

“And you expect me to believe that you’re Obi-Wan, and that after a whole day you haven’t learned a single thing about the abomination supposedly suppressed inside your own mind?”

“As I said, it’s not exactly something I can help—”

“Bullshit. The _actual_ Obi-Wan would have ended up half-way to an aneurysm if that was what it took to figure out what was in his head. He would give his life before letting his body be used to aid the Sith, if that was what it took. So don’t you dare just sit there and tell me that you’re Obi-Wan Kenobi and that you’ve been staring at the goddamn wall since yesterday afternoon.”

 _Force damn it, Anakin, I’ve **been** trying! _But Anakin couldn’t hear him.

“I’ve _been_ trying, Anakin,” the entity said, “but with the entity suppressed by the cell, I can’t sense anything besides its presence. Believe me, I wish I could.”

“ _Really_.”

“Yes, _really_ , Anakin.”

Anakin’s response wasn’t words so much as a growl made through gritted teeth.

Obi-Wan’s face moved into the slightest smile. “Much as I hate to admit it, the emphaticness of your response might do us both some good. After all, you’ll probably need it if you are to get me out of this mess.”

Anakin’s face darkened in response. “The real Obi-Wan Kenobi would _also_ never be encouraging me told hold onto my anger. I’m not sure the man has ever had an emotion he hasn’t immediately released to the Force.”

That was both unfair and decidedly untrue. At that very moment, Obi-Wan was experiencing several different emotions, and he couldn’t release any into the Force due to the damned cell.

“Of course I’m not encouraging you to hold onto your anger,” the entity said, voice calm and impeccably logical-sounding. “I’m merely pointing out that this matter has proven quite vexing so far, and that it will take a great deal of energy and stamina to push through it anyway.” A raised eyebrow. “I hope you don’t need me to repeat my lecture on the proper ways to process and handle emotions, and how to tell when it is helpful and appropriate to release them into the Force.”

“Do you honestly think I’m this stupid?” Anakin snarled.

“Of course I don’t think you’re stupid,” the entity answered, sounded appallingly put-upon. “The conclusions you’ve come to are not unreasonable. They are, however, incorrect.”

“If you wanted me to believe you weren’t a Sith, you shouldn’t have told me to hang onto my anger!”

“And as I told _you_ , that’s not what I meant. Did I mention anger anywhere in my initial comment? Rage? Hatred? You might not have been listening, as usual, but I promise you I did not.”

“I listen _plenty_ when I’m talking to my actual Master, you sack of _shit_ —”

“Sack of shit? Really, Anakin, if you’re going to persist in disbelieving me at least be a _bit_ more creative than—”

Anakin lunged forward, stopping just short of the force field around Obi-Wan’s cell. “Don’t pretend to be him, don’t you fucking dare pretend to be him—”

“I’m _not_ , Anakin. If I were some Sith spirit, could I pull off an act this well? Could I remember everything about being Obi-Wan Ke—”

The entity’s words were choked off by Anakin and by the Force.

“ _You do not get to say his name_ ,” Anakin said, raising his clenched hand into the air, and Obi-Wan’s body with it.

The entity’s eyes were blown wide, looking at Anakin in what, Obi-Wan suspected, might actually be fear.

If only he wasn’t so swallowed by his own horror, he might even enjoy the chance to see the entity squirm.

And the entity was, literally, squirming. Thrashing in Anakin’s grip. But it couldn’t use the Force from inside the cell. It couldn’t yell for the guard through the chokehold, couldn’t even kick something over to make enough noise to summon them.

Was this how Obi-Wan was fated to die? At the hands of his best friend, his brother?

“You don’t get to say his name, _Sith_ ,” Anakin continued, voice dangerously low. “Not when you’re trying to kill him. Not when, for all I know, you already have.”

Obi-Wan felt the grip of the Force tighten further around his throat.

“I will _rend_ you to fucking _pieces_ for it—”

“It’s me, Anakin,” the entity pleaded, a harsh whisper all it could manage around the chokehold. And frankly it was a miracle it managed that much. “It’s me. Obi-Wan. And even if it wasn’t—even if it wasn’t, even if I was the Sith, you’d still be killing your Master.”

Anakin’s face was unyielding as stone.

“Don’t—do this, Anakin. Don’t Fall. If you won’t for—for me, do it for Ahsoka, she needs her Master—”

Anakin’s eyes twitched the slightest bit. Then the rest of his face, his mouth. Then his hand.

Then his hand twitched open, and Obi-Wan and the entity fell to the floor, the entity gasping for them both as Anakin looked down on them in growing horror.

“Obi-Wan,” he said as he stared blankly at them—no, through them, maybe not even seeing them.

Then Anakin turned and fled out the door.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Painting/redecorating/refinishing furniture is hard fucking work, yall. Frankly I'm astonished I got this chapter out like two minutes after the end of Saturday. But it's thanks to all of you: your comments on the last chapter were so lovely and reassuring that I got inspired and really motivated to work and write the new scenes that kept this chapter from being only 2.5k
> 
> Also, I needed something to wind down from the hecticness of the day, lol. Pretty sure we hit up seven different stores, plus an estate sale and a yard sale. And more tomorrow...! Wish me luck. And I'll catch up on replying to comments shortly.
> 
> Thanks as always to SapphiraBlue for the beta and cheerleading.

“So. Walk me through your exact objectives for the children.”

Volyn narrowed her eyes as she focused in on Mara. “Here?” Her tone was scathingly dubious.

But Mara just shrugged, her demeanor utterly unaffected. “Why not? Either we can’t go back, it’s all moot, and we get some amusement horrifying the Jedi, or we can go back, they can’t stop us from the past, and we get some amusement horrifying the Jedi.”

Luke was pretending to be asleep in his cell. Mara carefully did nothing that might be expected to wake him; the conversation was going to be hard enough for him to overhear.

Rolling her eyes, Volyn answered, “Torture. Brainwashing. Unshakeable loyalty to the Empire. The works.”

“We doing this at another Sith Temple?” Mara asked, careful not to seem too interested in the idea of a location. “Because the one we broke Skywalker at, that additional power was useful.”

“Force users,” Volyn scoffed, but lightly. Idly. “Always chasing your damn highs.”

“You dare—!” The Inquisitor burst out of his brooding silence. He stuck his face, burning and contorted with rage, right up to the bars and double forcefields that separated their cells. His face was inches from Volyn’s. “You mock the power of the Dark Side!”

Volyn’s snort was one of those occasional things that made Mara doubt the bounty hunter’s actual opinion of the Inquisitor, but it might just have been an occupational hazard. “I mock a lot of things.”

“And you take your life into your own—”

“Relax,” Mara cut in, drawling. She sharply regretted that she couldn’t sit back and let her enemies tear into each other. Verbally or otherwise. “She has no idea what she’s missing.”

The process of the Inquisitor deciding to force his rage down was entertaining to watch. “You’re right,” he said, finally. “She has no idea how pathetic and empty her life truly is. She’s simply jealous of her betters.”

“Whatever you want to tell yourself,” Volyn said, her voice like ice.

And that was the firm end of that conversation. Without any word on the children.

Mara would just have to keep trying.

\---

The problem was, of course, that Volyn was a reticent bastard of a woman, and the Inquisitor was just an insane fanatic. So getting anything at all out of them would be extremely, extremely difficult.

But without Volyn and the Inquisitor thinking that Mara and Luke were also Sith, getting anything out of them would have been impossible.

Luke, Mara knew, _hated_ lying to his father and Ben and, by proxy, Yoda, although the Grandmaster of the Order had yet to grace them with his presence. From what Mara had gathered by watching the Council’s interactions, Yoda was too busy serving as the public face of the Order and taking care of Jedi business and war business. Despite the fact that, as far as Mara could tell, Mace Windu was the one actually responsible for running the Order.

Much to her surprise. And Luke’s.

Jedi records from the Old Republic had been…sparse.

So Yoda’s preoccupation could only be a good thing, since Mara knew the last thing he wanted was to have to lie to the Master who’d taught him the most and the longest.

Also, being interrogated by Yoda was likely where Luke’s acting abilities would fail him. Especially given that, Mara knew, Luke almost _wanted_ them to.

He wouldn’t give the game away on purpose, she knew. But he wanted it to be over.

The only problem was that they couldn’t reveal the truth until they had the locations from the children. Because after everything Luke and Mara had said and done, the Jedi would never, ever believe them. What little chance of that there had been, it had been dealt a serious blow with Luke’s attack on Obi-Wan. And with the revelation of Obi-Wan’s possession, that chance had vanished almost entirely.

In the beginning, when they could have told the Jedi the truth, it wouldn’t have mattered if the Jedi had somehow helped them interrogate Volyn and the Inquisitor. Those interrogations would have yielded _nothing_. And frankly, Mara didn’t trust the Jedi—except _maybe_ Obi-Wan—to know that she and Luke were undercover and not let on to Volyn and the Inquisitor.

Or rather, just to Volyn. She was terrifyingly smart. Also, just terrifying—although obviously not to Mara. But lesser beings might have been taken aback when Volyn had seen Mara constrain her “torture” of Luke to supposed mental attacks, and then explained in well-cited detail the psychological benefits that cutting off limbs and scarification had on a victim’s self-concept and thus breakability.

The Inquisitor was more of a blunt instrument.

If they told the Jedi after everything that would happen, at best, they would be laughed out of the interrogation room. At worst, the Jedi would attempt to run a prisoner’s dilemma and take their confession right to Volyn and the Inquisitor in an attempt to turn the four of them against each other.

If the Jedi tried that, Mara knew, they would succeed. And Volyn and the Inquisitor would never, ever share the location of the children that were supposed to be the superpowered enforcers of their revived Empire.

Until they had proof that they couldn’t get back to their own future, or that it would be overwritten, she had Luke had to assume that they could. They had to assume that the children could be saved, _needed_ to be saved.

And so she and Luke would just have to continue living with the discomfort.

\---

“If this isn’t resolved quickly, we’ll have to tell the Chancellor,” Mace said, expression grave. Next to him, Yoda nodded.

Obi-Wan wasn’t in control of his own body, yet again. Although Mace and Yoda couldn’t sense anything from one way or the other while his Force abilities were suppressed by the cell, his use and sense of the Force all locked inside of him, they were still two of the wisest and most perceptive Jedi. The intruder that had taken him over, presumably, didn’t want to risk that Obi-Wan could do something quickly enough to give his true position away, especially to two beings who knew him so well.

“I know,” Obi-Wan heard his own voice reply, sounding as serious as Obi-Wan would in the same situation. “It was one thing to neglect to tell him of recent events when the circumstances were as unbelievable as time travel, and could only deliver horrifying, piece-meal information about the war that the Chancellor had no way to act on. But my…circumstances…are rather different.”

“Realize we had captured time-displaced Sith, the Chancellor could not. But notice your disappearance, the Senate will. Too, the people will.”

That was, unfortunately, true: one of the most downsides of being one of the most famous and highest-ranking generals in the GAR.

Obi-Wan was just lucky he hadn’t gone with Anakin or been called in to see the Chancellor in between his possession and his imprisonment. Force only knew what the Sith possessing him would have done to the man.

“That is true,” the entity agreed. “But I still worry about doing so. Significant amounts of classified information have leaked out of the Senate in recent months. Some of that information was disclosed only to the Chancellor’s office. This situation is alarming enough to us, those who know and understand the Force—the Senate wouldn’t know what to make of it, and the public’s reaction would be even worse. There would be panic over the war, a huge blow to morale, even distrust toward the Jedi out of the fear that we might all be mind controlled, or planning to mind control others. And if it got past the Chancellor’s office, into a single committee—no Senate committee could keep secret so gossip-worthy and disturbing of a secret, even without the corruption.”

“Not to mention,” Mace added, “what the Senate would do in response. They already ignore far too much of our historic independence; this could easily be seen as a sign that we are not capable of running the war effort. While I don’t they’d want to replace us as generals, at risk of making their own people do the work…the last thing we want is to have the war effort directed by Senate committee.”

“Uninvolved in the fighting, many senators are. See the soldiers as disposable, they already do. Unfair enough, the situation of the troopers and the Galaxy is—and worse it will become, if there to protect them, we are not.”

Mace sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’ve managed to conceal your imprisonment so far, restricted knowledge to the Council, Anakin and Ahsoka, and the most trusted and discrete handful of Temple Guards. But it’s been long enough that you will be expected to redeploy shortly, and the Chancellor has been asking after you.”

Obi-Wan’s breath would have caught, if he could have controlled his own lungs. Thank the Force the Chancellor hadn’t inquired before the entity had revealed itself. For once, the enormous amount of work generated by the war appeared to be a good thing.

“Tell him I have been redeployed,” the entity answered.

Mace raised an eyebrow. “And when he asks why the 212th and the 501st are still stationed on Coruscant? Or why Anakin and Ahsoka remain here?”

“Has Anakin been to see him lately?”

“Not so far as I know,” Mace answered. “He’s been far too preoccupied with your situation, and before that, his son’s. Master Nu mentioned he’s been buried in the library looking at ancient texts on the Sith even before your possession came to light.”

Because Anakin thought he could save Luke.

Obi-Wan wanted to groan. Anakin’s efforts were understandable, noble, and doomed. They would only bring him pain.

“Well if Anakin hasn’t been to see him lately, then tell him I have been redeployed on a covert mission. Undercover, Jedi business. Make up some brief details if you want, so long as they’re impossible to verify, then tell him I’m on mandatory radio silence and that you’ll brief him after the situation is over.”

Mace snorted. “Which we will not be doing, if this situation resolves itself. I’m not panicking the Chancellor or the Senate unless absolutely necessary.”

“Agreed, I am,” Yoda hummed. “Work, the excuse will.”

“Brief him over holocom,” the entity suggested. “Politicians are, after all, trained to read people. And that way you can more easily make an excuse to leave if he begins to ask too many questions.”

“Playing spy games with the Chancellor,” Mace sighed. “Just what I hoped my life would come to. But alright. We’ll do it.”

“A week’s secrecy, you will have. Then reassess, we must, Obi-Wan.”

“Agreed,” the entity said. “If this situation isn’t resolved within one week, we will need to start considering more drastic courses of action.”

_Well that doesn’t bode ill at all_ , Obi-Wan thought to himself.

\---

The next time Obi-Wan heard someone approaching his cell, it was one day after Anakin’s last…visit…and five hours after Mace’s, and he was surprised to make out Ahsoka’s voice drifting through the crack under the door. _Master Windu said I could bring him tea_ , she was saying, _plus some datapads—Master Windu already cleared them, they’re incapable of connecting to the holonet or really anything. They can’t transmit at all_.

Obi-Wan was touched, even if he hadn’t been the one who had made the request for tea. Ahsoka’s kindness and consideration would be one of her greatest strengths as a Jedi, he knew.

Now he would just have to see whether the entity would let him be the one to drink it. He rather thought he deserved it, given that he was the one imprisoned but innocent of wrongdoing—

Although in the highly unlikely event that the entity was telling the truth, he could reluctantly admit that those were the sort of life experiences—and…death…experiences—that might lead one to deserve a good cup of sapir.

After a moment of the guards conferring, the door opened and Ahsoka stepped in. A guard stepped in with her to open the slot in the cell bars—and the forcefield nestled behind them—and allow Ahsoka to slide through two datapads and a thermos that presumably contained tea. Which, to Obi-Wan’s horror, was rested directly on the screen of the top datapad, where it would almost definitely leave a ringmark.

The guard left and the door closed behind her, leaving him and Ahsoka with some small amount of privacy. It was perhaps unwisely trusting of them, even with Ahsoka on the other side of the bars and the forcefield nestled in just to his side of them. But the cell had originally been designed to hold Sith, and he was far less dangerous than that.

He hoped.

Ahsoka’s face was fixed in determination. “I know you’re not Obi-Wan.”

Obi-Wan looked up. Of course she said something like that _now_ —

“Or at least you weren’t, when we were talking earlier. I don’t know who I’m talking to now, but whoever Skyguy and I talked to earlier— _that_ wasn’t Obi-Wan.”

Oh thank the Force, someone had _noticed_ —

Obi-Wan promptly lost control of his body. Again.              

He felt a rush of horror. _If you hurt her…_ he sent, filling the end of the sending with all of the implications that he could fit in, all of the options he could find, and his absolute determination to stop at nothing to protect Ahsoka.

_I won’t_ , the entity responded. _I know my word means astronomically little to you, but for what it’s worth, I do promise_. The entity let adamant sincerity and a strong desire for peace drift through its shields, but Obi-Wan had no idea whether he could afford to believe them.

“Well,” his mouth said, as his hand reached for the thermos, “it was Obi-Wan that you just handed the tea and datapads to. But you’re correct about our earlier conversation, and I assume from your accusations that you’re currently looking to talk to me.”

Obi-Wan’s hands began unscrewing the lid of the thermos. Part of him was appalled to see tea in a thermos at all, and the rest of him was appalled that the entity was going to get to drink it.

“I brought that for Obi-Wan,” Ahsoka said, glaring. “Not you.”

The entity used Obi-Wan’s mouth to smile. Obi-Wan couldn’t say for sure, not from the inside, but it felt as if the expression was surprisingly gentle. “But I’m the one who asked for it.”

Unsurprisingly, Ashoka didn’t return the smile. “Tell me who or what you are, or I tell Master Windu that he’s wrong about the Force inhibitors built into the cell keeping you from controlling Master Obi-Wan.”

_What._

An eyebrow rose. “You should be telling him that anyway.”

“Thought I might try some negotiating first.”

“Might you, now.” Obi-Wan’s face smoothed out again. “Out of curiosity, how did you know that I wasn’t Councilor Kenobi?” An unusually formal term of address if the entity was telling the truth—or else the form of address was a delicate half-truth.

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’m definitely going to tell you that so that you can be sure not to make the same mistake and tip off any other Jedi. I’ve always wanted to help bad guys possessing my grandmaster get better at lying.”

“You proposed an exchange, Ahsoka, but I’m not convinced that a mere silence on your part is enough to merit such a significant disclosure on mine.” Then, more wryly, “Especially given that you could easily run to Master Windu the second you leave here, regardless of what I say.”

Maybe the entity just wasn’t used to trying to pilot someone else’s body, but coming out of Obi-Wan’s mouth in that moment, its voice sounded oddly…warm.

“So, what, I tell you how I knew you were faking it, and then you tell me what you are?”

“Well, that’s quite a bit of information…certainly enough that you could feel justified in running straight to the Council. But how about this: your Master confronted me yesterday. In exchange, I’ll tell you whether his theory is correct.”

To Obi-Wan’s astonishment, Ahsoka actually laughed. “No way! I already know that Anakin was wrong.”

Obi-Wan’s body drew up a bit, and Obi-Wan himself did the mental version of the same. Anakin’s theory had sounded perfectly plausible, given what Obi-Wan knew and what he’d experienced.

“Interesting. Well, congratulations. How, pray tell?”

Ahsoka’s smile was vicious—the smile of a species that had evolved for the purpose of hunting down its prey. “Well, unlike Anakin, I kept researching long enough to know that Essence Transfer can only be performed by _living_ Sith, within a relatively small physical proximity, and it destroys their original body. We know that whatever Luke Skywalker did to Obi-Wan is responsible for this, and _no way_ Essence Transfer is what he did. Cuz, y’know, he’s still alive.”

“Very astute.” Obi-Wan could feel his face smiling, and could feel the muscles around his mouth fighting not to smile wider. “Yesterday, Anakin had not yet realized that Luke’s attack brought about this situation.”

“Yeah, well, that’s because he skipped the Council briefing in order to come confront you,” Ahsoka muttered. Then her eyes widened and her mouth shut as she seemed to realize she probably shouldn’t backtalk her master to possible Sith.

“Why am I not surprised?” the entity mused, before saying more firmly, “Very well. Tell me how you knew I was lying, and then I’ll give you information in return.”

“Okay, first of all, you’re evil, so why would I let you go first? Out of the two of us, which is more likely to break their word?”

The entity’s shielding had been almost impeccable until that moment, even in the face of Anakin’s most vicious threats. But somehow, Ahsoka or her accusation caught it off-guard, and when she accused it of being evil, the faintest impression of emotion slipped through: guilt, longing, and sorrow.

“And secondly?” was all it asked.

“Secondly, I already told you something pretty significant. And I went first, just like you wanted. So. Your turn. What are you?”

If Obi-Wan had actually been in control of his own Force-damned body, he would have held his breath for the answer. For a long moment, the entity didn’t answer. Then, slowly, it offered, “Name the options you’ve found, and I’ll tell you if any of them are correct.”

Ahsoka’s eyes narrowed. “How do I know you won’t just pick one of them to throw me off, knowing it’s a theory I already found plausible?”

_How many types of possession are there?_ Obi-Wan had to wonder.

“How many types of mind control and possession are there?” the entity asked, causing Obi-Wan a panicked second wherein he checked to confirm that yes, his mental shields were still holding.

Ahsoka grimaced. “Surprisingly many. Disgustingly many, even.”

Another long pause while the entity considered that. Or at least made a visible show of considering it—Obi-Wan could feel his facial muscles twisting into what he privately considered his Serious, Pensive Councilor expression.

Finally, his mouth moved again. “I’m a Force ghost,” his voice said, ending in a gentle smile.

Ahsoka’s eyes almost doubled in size.

“If you don’t tell Master Windu about any of this, I might be persuaded to give you more information later on,” the entity added.

_Don’t do it, Ahsoka. Don’t,_ Obi-Wan thought at her as loudly as he could, but he knew it was futile. No external use of the Force was possible in the cell. _If he’s not lying, this is enough for you to work from. Please, do not make a foolish deal for the sake of possibly helping me a little bit faster. Please do not risk it._

“How do I know you’re not lying?” Ahsoka asked, and all Obi-Wan could feel was thankfulness that Ahsoka wasn’t just believing the entity. Along with a fear he’d never admit out loud.

Obi-Wan could feel his smile fall into a slight, pensive frown. “I’m not sure, but I suspect your research will bear out the validity of my claim. And if not,” he shrugged, “well, come back, and we’ll discuss another exchange.”

_Do not do it, Ahsoka, do **not**_ **—**

Ahsoka’s eyes narrowed as she scrutinized Obi-Wan’s body, hunting for any sign the entity was lying. Finally, she nodded, and Obi-Wan despaired. “You have a deal. On one condition: the next time I’m here, I get to talk to Obi-Wan.”

The entity smiled. “Deal. I’ll even let Obi-Wan drink the tea next time.” Its smile widened. “It’s been a pleasure, Ahsoka. Please do come visit again.”

Ahsoka’s mouth tightened. But when she spoke, she didn’t respond to the entity itself. “Master Obi-Wan, just hold on,” she said, her voice fierce and determined. “Trust me, I’ll do whatever I can to help you.”

Mentally, Obi-Wan sighed. _Ahsoka, I really hope you know what you’re doing_ , he thought at her retreating back.

\---

_So,_ Obi-Wan thought very loudly at the other occupant of his head, _what, exactly, is a Force ghost supposed to be?_

A small wave of amusement. _Exactly what it sounds like, and exactly what I told you earlier. I’m you, from the future, after you died._

_Our spirits dissolve into the Force upon death. The youngest child in the creche knows that. Only the Sith have managed to defy the natural order by twisting the Force to their own ends._

That wasn’t, Obi-Wan knew, precisely true. There were records of a Jedi technique that would allow the retention of self beyond death, but they were widely dismissed as myth. He only knew of them because of Qui-Gon’s study in the area and conviction that they were true.

_Your posturing aside_ , the entity sent, _you know perfectly well that wasn’t true. Qui-Gon was, indeed, correct, and well on his way to discovering this technique when he died. Although he didn’t perfect it until many years after his death._

Once again Obi-Wan checked his shields, and once again they had held.

The entity had demonstrated enough specific and secret knowledge of Obi-Wan’s history and thoughts that its claim to be him from the future was…at least remotely possible.

Obi-Wan didn’t want it to be possible. He didn’t want it to be even remotely possible, because if it was—their time travelling prisoners had spoken of the fall of the Republic, the fall of the Jedi. The Inquisitor, as he called himself, had particularly enjoyed taunting them with his supposed foreknowledge.

The Jedi had tentatively—and very unhappily—decided the time travelers were telling the truth. Their stories were too consistent, despite having no chance to compare notes. Given how clearly their arrival in the past and immediate capture had been unintentional, they could not have plotted the scheme in advance. And if they were lying to mess with the Jedi, why not pick a more believable lie to tell than the downfall of a Republic that had stood for a thousand years?

Just because their prisoners were telling the truth about that did not mean that their ally possessing him wasn’t lying through Obi-Wan’s own teeth.

And was he supposed to embrace this supposed future version of himself? Could it honestly be so deluded as to expect him to?

The war had forced Obi-Wan to do many distasteful things, to make uncomfortable compromises. But he had never wanted to believe himself capable of Falling.

Because if the entity really was him… it had possessed another sentient being against his will. It had aided multiple Sith. It had clearly demonstrated greater allegiance to those Sith than to the Jedi Order. It was actively provoking Darkness in Obi-Wan’s own apprentice.

How else was he supposed to interpret those actions?

\---

Obi-Wan. He’d almost killed Obi-Wan.

Regardless of the circumstances, regardless of whatever the Force-damned Sith had done to him, Obi-Wan was in there.

He had to be. He had to still be in there.

The alternative, that the Sith had succeeded in completing them Essence Transfer, had crushed Obi-Wan’s mind and soul into oblivion—

That was unacceptable. Obi-Wan was still alive. He had to be.

Which meant that Anakin had almost murdered his own Master in a fit of uncontrolled rage.

Except that it would be better if it had been uncontrolled. If Anakin truly hadn’t been in control, hadn’t been able to stop himself.

But that wasn’t true.

He’d had the ability to control himself, if he had wanted to. That was how he had stopped choking the life out of his best friend. That was how he’d managed to keep his shields up, stopping the Temple Guards from storming in at the first hint of Darkness.

He’d had the ability to stop himself from ever going that far. He just hadn’t bothered to use it. No, he’d been _angry_ and _in pain_ , so he’d decided his emotions got to take the reins.

He’d done that before, of course. He didn’t like to think about it. He knew his slaughter of the Tuskens wasn’t becoming of a Jedi, knew it was even worse that he wasn’t sure he regretted it—

It had felt so good.

He had slaughtered every single one of them and gloried in it. In the righteousness of his vengeance.

But this time, anything Anakin did to the entity, he would also do to Obi-Wan.

And that…that was unacceptable. He’d as soon hurt Padmé.

He needed to—he needed to do something. Anything to stop this, to make this right. He wasn’t sure what, but he’d think of something, eventually. Figure out how to control his anger when he wasn’t in front of other Jedi, figure out how not to want to kill people who deserved it, figure out how to like it—

Maybe when he was done, Obi-Wan would be willing to look at him again.

Anakin still wasn’t entirely convinced that Obi-Wan had been in control, the way he’d been almost…egged on. Not blatantly, not enough that he was sure…

But even if Obi-Wan hadn’t been in control, he’d still been there. He’d still been there, trapped in his own head.

And that meant that he’d seen Anakin touch the Dark Side and use it to try to murder him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahsoka is my wonderful, brave, impulsive space daughter. And yep, I'm still mean to Obi-Wan, and yep, Anakin is a mess.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early chapter because I'm too excited about my own announcement, and extra long chapter for yall today, plus...well, let's just say I think you'll like this one.
> 
> Something you'll probably like even more, my announcement: **THERE WILL BE A SEQUEL TO THIS.**
> 
> So, for context, there wasn't originally going to be. I had an end point to this fic, and that was where I was going to be done with this universe. That endpoint is still the endpoint of this fic--meaning when you get to the end, you're still seeing something I think of as narratively complete. A whole story arc. But eventually I realized I knew what happened AFTER the endpoint that I decided on, and I decided that I did want to write it. That said, absolutely no promises on when the sequel will be posted. Probably not any time soon because work is kicking my ass, and I would like to finish my AU where Obi-Wan and Anakin are sorcerers and Padme is a Fae queen first (promo for that). If I decide to write the sequel in order, it could start posting within the next couple months. Far more likely is that it will be written out of order (which leads to me being much more productive, but a later post date), in which case, it'll probably be up in six months to a year.
> 
> There are also a couple related snippets to this that I'd be willing to post now if people are interested. Neither will ever actually turn into full fics, but one of them is the beginning of Luke and Mara's mission (stops before any of the graphic stuff), which I do consider canon to this fic. As for the other, early on, I was considering having this fic take place with all of the main characters trapped in the Sith Temple that Luke was "tortured" in. Not much of that got written down, but there's a scene involving Luke and Ahsoka that I really love and would be willing to post if there's interest. So if you want to read either of those, let me know in the comments! Both are about 2k
> 
> As always, thank you to SapphiraBlue for the beta/cheerleading/enabling. You have them to thank in part for the sequel too. And thanks to eliyes for figuring out Obi-Wan's taste in reading material ;)

The next time she arrived, Ahsoka brought another two new datapads and another thermos of tea. Obi-Wan was in the middle of reading one of the previous datapads he’d brought in—a light swashbuckler he would never have admitted to Ahsoka he read.

Unfortunately, his grandpadawan could be a nosy imp.

Then again, she was also the only one who’d figured out he wasn’t always in control, so perhaps he could withstand her teasing about his reading materials.

“Obi-Wan?” she asked cautiously, assessingly, after the Temple Guard opened the slot, let her push the tea and datapads through, and left.

“For now,” he agreed, managing to summon a weary smile. Ahsoka’s assessing look continued, though a bit more subdued—evidently, however she’d figured out the entity was lying, she wasn’t completely sure quite yet.

To Obi-Wan’s significant displeasure, he felt a request wave across his consciousness.

“Ahsoka,” he said, keeping his face and tone under very careful control, “the entity wants me to ask whether you’d like to talk to me first or whether you’d like to speak to me first, or…continue your previous conversation with it.”

Ahsoka’s expression turned sheepish. “Uh, I’d actually like to talk to the entity first and you after, sorry, Master Obi-Wan.”

_May I?_

Oh, how kind of it, to pretend that it needed to _ask_ about _anything_ —

He forced a smile. “Very well.”

“We’re gonna talk after, though, okay, Master? I have nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon, and if it doesn’t let us talk I’m going to run straight to Master Windu.”

“Okay.” And with that he sent an angry spike of agreement to the entity.

On the upside, the shifts of control in his body were no longer accompanied by nausea and retching, hadn’t been since the first time. On the downside, that meant that no one had noticed them, and in fact used the lack of visible reaction to assume they never happened.

“So, Ahsoka,” the entity asked, molding Obi-Wan’s face into what felt like a friendly smile, “what has your research turned up?”

Ahsoka’s eyes narrowed. “Lots of stuff.”

“Anything to bear out the validity of my claim?” That, Obi-Wan also dearly wanted to know.

“Well, there’s records of both the Sith and the Jedi making Force ghosts. Supposedly the Sith can tie Force ghosts to living beings…but they have to do it themselves. And there’s no record of Force ghosts being able to _possess_ people.”

“Hmm. Interesting.” Obi-Wan’s hands folded themselves on his lap.

“So can you prove it?”

“Honestly? I’m not sure.”

“Well, if you’re a Force ghost, why don’t you just fly on out of Master Obi-Wan and prove it to me?”

As far as Obi-Wan was concerned, that sounded like a great plan. And if Luke’s attack had been necessary to make this happen, maybe he would even get to _remain_ free… “Sorry,” the entity said, still smiling, “I’m afraid that’s not in the cards.”

“I’m not just gonna believe you on something like this without proof. You’re _way_ too questionable a source.”

“Then I’m not sure what else I can do, my dear Ahsoka. Are you saying you want to bring our arrangement to an end?”

Ahsoka, while not actually shouting, was approaching levels generally considered unacceptable for indoors. “Yeah, if I have no reason to believe you’re not lying to me!”

The entity sighed. “I know no one believes me when I say I’m not lying about things, but I promise that I am not lying to you about this.”

Of course, the last time someone had accused the entity of lying, it had been Anakin, and Anakin had absolutely been right. Even if he’d…

Even if he’d refrained from acting on those convictions, given what had…happened.

“Fine then,” Ahsoka said, voice firm with challenge, “tell me something true. Something I _can_ prove. Show of good faith.”

The entity paused in thought for a few seconds before saying, “I can offer you something I am not lying about, of course, but there is no way for me to prove I wasn’t lying then. At least,” he quirked a smile, “not without someone letting me out of here so that I can let you sense my intentions.”

Ahsoka snorted. “Not happening.”

“I figured,” the entity answered, nonchalant. “I am not an expert in Sith possession and mind control techniques—in large part because, despite everyone’s unwillingness to believe it, I am not a Sith. But tell me, Ahsoka, you’ve been researching for days, and from what I’ve seen you’ve done an exceptionally thorough job of it. Tell me, is there any other explanation you found that fits better?”

“…No.”

“The fact that records of Force ghosts possessing someone do not exist in the Jedi archives does not mean it’s impossible. Especially given that we spent a thousand years mistakenly believing the Sith had been eliminated.” If Ahsoka noticed that the entity referred to itself as a Jedi, she didn’t react, but Obi-Wan certainly did. As much as he could, inside his own head. Infuriating enough for the entity to try to convince him that it was his future self, but if it was about to spring that tale on Ahsoka…

But the entity didn’t. Instead, it continued, “The Force has certainly manifested stranger things than this. And here’s my show of good faith: I can see into Obi-Wan’s memories, sometimes on accident, sometimes on purpose. That’s part of how I’ve led the Council to believe he is always in control. And surely this is no more bizarre than Mortis.”

Obi-Wan checked his shields, but as had been the case every time he had checked, every time the entity had cited something from Obi-Wan’s memories, they seemed intact. So his shields were useless against the entity, or…

Obi-Wan wasn’t sure what was more terrifying.

“Mortis, okay, yeah, that was weirder,” Ahsoka said with a chuckle. “At least, you know, I think.”

“Then is my situation truly so unbelievable?”

“You know,” Ahsoka drawled, “saying you can access Obi-Wan’s memories—you just gave me a lot of rope to hang you with.” And, Obi-Wan hoped, that was exactly what would happen. Preferably sooner rather than later.

“Well then,” the entity said, using Obi-Wan’s mouth to smile, “I suppose it’s a good thing I trust you with my neck.”

Ahsoka’s raised brow markings spoke volumes.

The entity leaned forward on the cell’s stone bench. “Forgive me if this seems impertinent to ask, but how are you holding up, Ahsoka?”

“Excuse me?” Ahsoka asked, blinking rapidly.

Obi-Wan felt his shoulders move in a gentle shrug. “I know I am the root of many of your Lineage’s current struggles, but you are sixteen years old, and innocent in this. I regret that the past week has likely been very hard for you, and that your Master and Grandmaster have been distracted or unavailable for so much of it.”

“And why exactly do you care?”

“Whatever you may think of me, I am not heartless. You probably won’t take me up on this offer, but if there’s something you need to get off your chest, I’m here to listen.” Another grin. “I’ll even let you yell your head off at me, if it would help. I’ve found it’s therapeutic, if you can do it somewhere without consequences. And I do promise not to tell.”

A strange look crossed Ahsoka’s face. “You know, you’re being awfully nice. For a dead Sith possessing my Grandmaster.”

“Yes, well, there’s no point in being rude, now is there?”

Ahsoka’s eyes narrowed. “Guess not.”

“But as I said,” the entity continued when Ahsoka didn’t, “you’re under no obligation to take me up on my offer.”

“Yeah. I think I’ll talk to Master Obi-Wan now, thanks.”

Yet another instance of that damn grin, one that felt like a clear, identical mockery of Obi-Wan’s own. “Very well.”

And then, to what was almost his own shock, Obi-Wan was in control again.

“Sorry about that, Master. But I had to ask those questions, and I figured we’d both rather, y’know, end on a good note.”

“It’s no problem, Ahsoka,” Obi-Wan lied, straightening out of the entity’s characteristic slouch and into the perfect posture that he had long since ingrained, in spite of the entity’s apparent efforts to ruin it. Then, genuinely: “Tell me, how have you been doing?”

“Oh, you know, Master. No one’s shooting at me, so that’s something.”

“Ahsoka, I’ve known you for two years now. You would be having an easier time of it if someone _were_ shooting at you.”

“Well yeah,” Ahsoka ducked her head, “but you’re not supposed to point that out.”

Obi-Wan sighed. The Jedi had their problems, it was true, and one of those problems was the overcorrection that attempts to follow the Code could induce. “Ahsoka. Of course you’re having a hard time right now. Force knows I certainly am. Anyone would find our circumstances stressful. It’s not weakness to feel worry or pain, and whatever fears we have all gotten in our heads from time to time, it’s certainly not against the Code. But refusing to deal with your emotions is. So,” he said, finally managing to meet her eyes, “do you want to talk about it?”

Ahsoka sighed theatrically. “Of course I’m having a hard time! You’re in prison and possessed and I have to keep checking in to make sure I’m actually talking to you! Anakin is a mess because of that and because he just met his future son who just got tortured into being a Sith, plus probably something else he won’t tell me, knowing him and his inability to talk about his secrets but also to actually keep them. I’m stuck doing most of the research because he started paling whenever he goes near it, for all he was actually useful in the beginning. And meanwhile, we can’t talk to anyone about any of this, because no one’s allowed to know it’s happening!”

“Yes, well, it does rather suck, doesn’t it?”

Ahsoka managed a startled laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, it does.”

“You know, you should also consider speaking to Plo Koon. If our conversation isn’t enough, I mean. I understand that you have…decided that you would hold back some of the details of your interactions with the entity, but it would still help some. He cares about you deeply, and he is cleared to know about all of, well, this.” He paused briefly. “Mace and Yoda would also be happy to talk to you, if you could catch them in a free moment.”

“…I know, Master. It’s just hard to…”

“Hard to ask,” Obi-Wan nodded. “Believe me, I know that all too well.”

Ahsoka’s eyes darted up. “What about you, Master? Do you have someone to talk to about all this?”

Not given that the entity had foiled his every attempt to tell someone what was actually going on. Not given that they had all failed to notice they were being deceived, courtesy of the entity’s terrifyingly impressive Obi-Wan Kenobi impression. “Don’t worry about me, Ahsoka. I’m your Grandmaster; it’s my job to worry about you.”

Ahsoka frowned. “That sounds like a no.” Her hands clenched and unclenched a few times at her sides. “Master…don’t try to answer this if the entity won’t let you without losing control, but…are you okay with the fact that I haven’t told anyone? That I decided it would be a good plan to blackmail the entity for more information instead?”

Could he answer? That was a wonderful question, one he waved over to the corner of his mind where the entity had settled in.

 _Not sure_ , came the slow response. _It might depend on your answer._

Obi-Wan narrowed his own eyes, and in the back of his mind marked it, as he had come to mark every single gesture and motion he made with his own body, however small.

_Are you going to take over her and lie to her if you don’t approve?_

A pause. _I’d prefer not to. Tell me your answer, and whatever you say, I will give you the option to decline to answer her yourself._

 _How generous,_ Obi-Wan thought privately. Then, to the entity, _Fine. Her plan has worked out far better than I expected, but honestly I think she should get up and take what she knows to the Council right now._

_…I’m sorry, Obi-Wan. But that would interfere far too much with my plans. Especially if they decided to try using actual Force binders again._

Obi-Wan had suspected as much. “I’m sorry, Ahsoka,” he said levelly, “but I must decline to answer.”

Ahsoka swallowed. She was smart enough to realize what that probably meant his answer was.

“I’m sorry, Master. I get why…you think what you probably do. But we don’t have a way to help you yet. There are no records on anything like this. I’m being careful, I am. But I think I can get more, and as the person who’s done more of the research on this than anyone else…right now, I don’t think we have a chance of helping you.”

A clear message came from the other corner of Obi-Wan’s mind. A request for permission to take over. Deciding to embrace at least the illusion of control and take what he could for his mental stability, Obi-Wan took a breath and relented. Once he extracted a promise that the entity would tell Ahsoka about the switch, in case her mysterious method of detection wasn’t instant or foolproof.

“Ahsoka,” the entity said. “I asked Obi-Wan to lend me control of a moment because I wanted to thank you for upholding your end of our deal. And I’d like to give you a token of my thanks.”

“You mean another bribe,” Ahsoka asked, one brow marking raised.

“A token,” the entity insisted with a smile. “One that could be very valuable to you, I suspect. Earlier, you asked why I didn’t simply leave Obi-Wan’s body to prove that I was a Force ghost, and not the results of an artifact or a mind control spell or a mental construct imposed on Obi-Wan. The truth is this: I tried, days ago. The Force dampeners in this cell bar its inhabitants from all external Force use. So while they do not suppress me…well, I essentially _am_ an external Force use. I can’t leave Obi-Wan’s body until he leaves this cell.”

Ahsoka gaped. “Okay, that’s…a pretty good bribe. Umm. Thanks.”

“You’re very welcome,” the entity said with astonishing sweetness.

“Right. So. I was in the middle of a conversation with Master Obi-Wan?”

And Obi-Wan was in control once more.

“So,” Ahsoka said pointedly. “Different topic. I read that holonovel I brought you, and it was fun, but I gotta say, the fact that you like swashbucklers about super smart dandies outmaneuvering politic opponents and rigid social systems with a bunch of sarcasm, only to come out ahead in the end after an elegant swordfight? That’s pretty predictable.”

Obi-Wan didn’t manage to figure out an answer before Ahsoka continued.

“But who am I to judge? I just prefer my swashbucklers with clever heroines who save the day and get the girl using a bunch of explosions.”

\---

“Master Yoda, Master Windu,” Anakin called out as the small briefing for himself, the two of them, Master Ti, and Ahsoka concluded, they five of them having successfully updated each other on the status of their giant, numerous headaches. “Can I have a moment?”

Ahsoka looked at her Master for a moment, then, seeing his nod, filed out of the room, Master Ti right behind her.

“Wish to speak with us, you do?”

“Yes, Masters. There’s something…I need to tell you.”   

Mace resisted the urge to close his eyes. Skywalker was an incredibly effective general and would probably mature into a brilliant Jedi someday, but anything that was enough to make Skywalker display hesitance was something that Mace did not want to deal with. Especially not after the week he’d already had.

“It’s about Obi-Wan, I assume?”

“…No, Master Windu. It’s not.”

Hopefully that meant Skywalker finally believed them that they weren’t going to give up on Obi-Wan. Mace didn’t know whether Skywalker’s inability to trust the Council on that front was a product of his childhood circumstances, some mission-based trauma, or something else entirely. But Mace did know that he didn’t appreciate the suggestions—more than suggestions, actually—that he intended to abandon a close friend, and he knew he wasn’t the only one.

But the way Mace’s week had been going, there was no way Skywalker’s admission was something benign.

“About the time travelers, then?” Skywalker’s uncharacteristic reticence only worsened Mace’s bad feeling.

“Yes,” Skywalker answered, nodding once, slowly. “It’s about the Sith. Specifically, it’s about something I learned in an interrogation.”

“A reason you did not put this in your reports, there is?” Yoda asked, driving straight to the point.

Skywalker’s chin inched down. “Yes, Master. I know I should have. But—” he visibly steeled himself “—I was wrong.”

One of Mace’s eyebrows shot up almost against his will. It was reassuring that Skywalker was demonstrating the ability to admit his mistakes, but Mace also had to wonder what was big enough to make him do so.

“Tell us what it is, you will,” Master Yoda said. Mace could hear a gentleness in the old Master’s voice, even as it was tinged with wariness. Yoda had always appreciated those who could recognize their failings. Unless Skywalker had omitted something absolutely essential, his willingness to admit it on his own would likely gain him a light punishment—if any—from both of them.

Skywalker’s hand came up to rub the back of his head. “Right. During my first interrogation with Vexion back at the Temple, rather than on the ship, I confronted her about what she did to my future son. Even though I’m not currently breaking the Code, I couldn’t not react to something like that. I may have been…emphatic,” Skywalker winced minutely as soon as he finished saying the word, “enough that she was concerned. Enough so that she offered me information. Her safety, and all, for what she said was the Sith’s greatest weakness.”

“Skywalker,” Mace started, “please tell me you did not actually threaten the Sith with physical harm.”

“I, uh, didn’t threaten to hurt her, no…” Skywalker didn’t _seem_ to be lying, in the Force, but there was an edge of dishonesty around him nonetheless.

“Threaten something else, you did?” Yoda asked, eyes narrow.

Skywalker grimaced before answering. “Yeah. So what she told me was that—”

“And threaten her with what, did you?”

Skywalker’s mouth tightened even further. Mace had to wonder if he was regretting bringing whatever the supposed secret weakness of the Sith was up, but it didn’t matter if he was. Not even Skywalker’s aversion to the Council would keep him from sharing something like that permanently.

Then again, Mace wouldn’t have thought it would keep him from sharing something allegedly of that magnitude at all.

Maybe the intel was weak. Or maybe it was…personal.

“I threatened to kill her for what she did to my son, okay?” Skywalker said, voice deliberately even and controlled, and Mace desperately wanted to make someone else deal with this. “I didn’t actually…I wasn’t gonna do it. I just wanted to scare her, I guess. For what she did to my son.”

Skywalker could say that after the fact, but Mace had a suspicion that in the interrogation room, it hadn’t been so cut and dry.

“We’ll discuss this more later,” Mace said, not sure whether he was taking pity on Skywalker or just trying to move on. Even if the existence of Skywalker’s son went against the Code, he _existed_ , and his fate was one Mace wouldn’t wish on his worst enemies. “First, this supposed secret weakness of the Sith?”

The return to duty—and to questions that didn’t cast Skywalker in such dubious light—saw a return of Skywalker’s determination. Maybe more of it than Mace had seen him with in days.

“This might not be true,” Skywalker cautioned. “I have no proof. And it completely goes against the teachings of our Order. It seems way more likely she was lying, and that’s part of why I didn’t share this earlier.”

“And?” Mace asked.

With a breath, Skywalker answered. “Darth Vexion claims that the secret weakness of the Sith is that Falling doesn’t have to be permanent. That a Force user might struggle, but they can return to the Light if they wish.”

That was—that was impossible. Skywalker was right: everything the Jedi taught, everything their library said, everything their Order believed dictated that that was impossible.

But Mace’s mind flashed to Depa, his former Padawan, lying comatose in the Healer’s Ward. Comatose after her Fall.

She hadn’t woken up. Mace hadn’t spoken to her since she’d tried to kill him. But the Healers said she would, eventually, and the thought of what would happen when she did, what state she might be in—

“Tell me more,” Mace said, and Skywalker looked up in what might have been surprise.

\---

“So I hear you told Anakin Skywalker that people can return from the Dark Side,” Master Windu asked, his voice serious but also bordering on a drawl—one heavily laced with suspicion.

So her didn’t believe her, then. Mara wasn’t shocked by that, but given the Jedi’s teachings on people returning from the Dark Side, she was kind of shocked that Anakin had mentioned anything. Still, her returning drawl was even stronger than Windu’s. “Did I, now?”

Master Windu looked decidedly unamused. “Allegedly. Are you denying it?”

“If it was true, it would be quite a coup for the Jedi to learn. Why would I ever admit that to you?”

“Maybe because you already admitted it to a Jedi.” Windu exhaled sharply, then spoke again. “He told us you said that because he was threatening to kill you.”

Mara’s brows shot upward. “Did he, now?” She wasn’t quite sure whether that was a step backward or a step forward, but she thought the odds leaned toward the latter. At the very least, the Jedi knowing that Skywalker was going rogue might help their chances.

“He did. So let me start by assuring you that Jedi don’t kill prisoners in the middle of interrogations. Nor do we torture them. Unless you are convicted and sentenced to lawful execution in a trial, or attack a Jedi such that they have no choice but to use lethal force in self-defense, you will remain alive.”

“So  _Jedi_ don’t kill defenseless prisoners. Interesting.”

Master Windu’s eyes narrowed. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

But Mara wasn’t going to do more than seed-planting. Not when Ben Kenobi had mentioned the role that the Council’s distrust had played in Turning Anakin Skywalker, especially when amplified by the Emperor’s poison. “It wouldn’t be a lawful execution, by the way. The Jedi, despite having an almost astonishing amount of investigative, policing, and diplomatic power, are not a judicial body. They can’t hold trials for citizens of the Republic who do not fall under their jurisdiction.”

“As a Sith, you automatically fall under our jurisdiction.”

“What, thanks to some three-thousand-year-old legal precedent that everyone thought obsolete until the start of the war?”

Windu, showing more self-control than the vast, vast majority of the sentients Mara had encountered, did not rise to the bait, despite Mara doing her best to come across as utterly infuriating. “Are you denying that you told Skywalker that Falls can be reversed, or not?”

There was no benefit in lying. It would only alienate Master Windu from both her and Anakin Skywalker, not to mention possibly shorten the time that the Council would agree to keep Mara and Luke alive. She shrugged. “I’m not denying it. One of Sidious’s Apprentice’s returned to the Light—much to my Master’s dismay.”

Windu’s eyes flashed, but apparently Jedi serenity was good for something, because even Mara couldn’t identify it. “How.”

“I don’t know. Therapy or something. I’ve certainly never done it.” That, at least, was true. Mara had long thanked the Force that the Emperor had believed that if his Hands weren’t taught to use the Dark Side, weren’t taught more of the Force than was absolutely necessary, they would never become a threat to his power.

“What do you know, then?” Windu asked. Mara opened her mouth, but was preempted. “About this, specifically.”

Well then. “The Dark Side is a choice. It’s an extremely easy one to make, and one that conceals all other options—though your Order’s dogma likely doesn’t help with that. Fear and helplessness and self-directed anger don’t exactly help with serenity.”

“But it’s a choice? One that someone can stop making?”

Master Windu’s gaze was just a little too intense, his voice not quite level. It seemed almost…personal to him. But he had shown little emotion toward Luke, and he and Anakin Skywalker hadn’t seemed particularly close.

“So who in your life Fell to the Dark Side?” Mara asked, uncomfortable even as she forced a smirk.

Windu and the young Obi-Wan had seemed friendly, yes, but not quite enough to justify this wavering of demeanor. Not from a man who so clearly prided himself on control, especially in the expression of emotions.

But in response to her prodding that masterful control flickered further.

All he said, however was, “Master Kenobi is a friend and a valued member of our Order.”

To push or not to push? Mara was well aware that angering Master Windu was a risk. But with Ben imprisoned, so was staying in the Jedi Temple. Yet they couldn’t break out until they had the children’s location.

And a way to circumvent the Temple’s admittedly effective security.

So, if they weren’t going to remain much long—they had _better_ not be remaining much longer—then she had three objectives that her interrogation with Master Windu could serve. One, warn the Jedi of the upcoming danger in such a way that they wouldn’t inform the Chancellor. Two, improve the Jedi’s ability to capture, retain, and rehabilitate Dark Siders when necessary. And three, give the Jedi reason not to put anyone on trial just yet.

But she couldn’t break cover, and she couldn’t risk the Jedi attempting to play prisoner’s dilemma with Volyn and the Inquisitor, to tell the actual Imperials that they were traitors in hopes of soliciting some information.

Also…

Mara chuckled lowly. “Are you honestly so ignorant as to mistake possession for a Fall? Or were you just lying to me.”

No sense in making Master Kenobi’s life harder than they already had, if the Jedi Council honestly thought he might be Fallen.

Master Windu’s eyes narrowed. “The latter, I’ll admit.” Well, that was refreshingly straightforward. “Several members of our Order have Fallen since the start of the war, and more will likely follow. As Master of the Order, if there is a way to save them, it’s my responsibility to know it.”

That was part of the truth, though not all of it. Likely one of the Fallen had meant something to him.

Mara did want to help, but she couldn’t let that be obvious. “So, _Master of the Order_ , is it also your responsibility that no one in your Order knows how to manage their emotions under the strain of a war?”

When Master Windu spoke, his tone was flat. “ _Excuse me_?”

“All negative emotions are evil temptations that will doom you,” Mara sneered. “Way to set off a vicious cycle. And no attachment, no love, never let your motivation be those you care for, never fight for anything except abstract ideals—you’ve left your Jedi ripe for the picking.”

“You vastly oversimplify the principles of our Order.”

“Do I?” Mara asked, letting her voice sound genuinely curious, knowing that even as a façade, it would be more effective than a mocking tone. “You know, as the student of the Sith who brought down the Jedi Order—” a rather misleading statement; despite her hopes, she’d never been made an Apprentice “—I heard things. Like that Master Yoda himself failed to pass on the idea of non-attachment to the New Jedi Order. I’m pretty sure Skywalker had no idea it existed until we landed back here. After all, he’s married. And he’s the kind of pious little shit that might have let that stop him.” Mara let a smirk slowly creep across her face. “Or, well. He _was_.”

Mara liked to think it wouldn’t have stopped him for long, that they still would have worked out in the end. But mostly she had been trying not to think about it.

“And why,” Windu began, “if our Code—which has served us for a thousand years—leaves us such ‘easy pickings,’ if Luke Skywalker’s way is so much better, then why is _he_ the one who Fell after just ten days of captivity? We’ve had plenty of Jedi taken captive, and that is _not_ the usual outcome.”

When Mara spoke again, her voice was soft, menacing. “Have you ever had the personal attention of a Sith, Master Windu? Been their sole, constant focus for days, no respite, not even in your nightmares? I never even let him fall unconscious, so he could never have peace.”

She leaned forward, pressing her hands into the hard metal of the table, the biting edges of her cuffs. “I drugged him until he was hallucinating, tortured him until he was in agony, cut him off from the Force, and shoved pure Darkness through him until it was all he knew, until he couldn’t have touched the Light even if he’d been freed. I breached his shields and ravaged his mind, invaded all his dreams, preyed on all his fears, warped all his hopes. For days and days I twisted his mind around, until Light was Dark, good was evil, pain was bliss. I put him under compulsion after compulsion until he was too broken to resist. I left him no sanctuary but that which I granted, until he came to worship my mercy, to worship me.

 “And then,” Mara said, smirk consuming her face, “he was mine.”

Master Windu was silent for a long moment before he spoke. “Then I pity him,” he said, voice detached but still astonishingly genuine. “I even pity you, that you could take this savage joy in such depravity. And I am left wondering two things: Is this what Darth Sidious did to you? And if you’re so dangerous, if Luke Skywalker is so irrevocably bound to you, why should I risk keeping you and your compatriots alive?”

Mara’s mouth went dry, but she refused to let it show. “No, my Master didn’t do that to me.” Mostly. “He didn’t have to.”

Windu’s expression was pensive. “And as to why I should risk keeping you all alive? Or even risk not killing you in order to try and save Luke Skywalker, if your information about Falling is accurate? You’ve given us some information since your imprisonment, but not that much.”

Such a question not from one loose cannon, but the Master of the Order…that left her in a vulnerable enough negotiating position that they might just believe her warning.

“You want information? Fine: Darth Sidious is in the Galactic Senate. And he is a master of deception. Assume no one there is trustworthy.”

“Except the women and beings of other genders, I suppose,” Master Windu said dryly.

Mara leaned back and shrugged. “If you can be confident that they’re not working for him.”

“And why, exactly, should I be confident in your information? After all your rhapsodizing about the Empire, I’m hard-pressed to believe you’d betray your Emperor.”

With a smirk and a cocking of her head, Mara replied, “Betrayal is the way of the Sith.” Or so Obi-Wan had informed her. The Emperor had certainly never risked telling her that. “For me, the Emperor has been dead fifteen years. I may want to restore the Empire, but I won’t martyr myself for a dead man.”

Master Windu leaned forward and folded his hands on the interrogation room table. “So,” he began, and just from his tone Mara was on guard. “Do you actually want to set yourself up as Empress, or do you just want me to think you do?”

Windu was dangerously astute. Mara forced her tone to stay idle. “Does it matter? I just gave you immensely valuable information. And I’ll give you more if you conceal that disclosure from my…compatriots, as you put it. But if you tell them, they’ll confront me, and you’ll get _nothing_. They’re all zealots—Luke for me, Volyn and the Inquisitor for the Empire. They won’t be so forthcoming.”

Hopefully Anakin hadn’t mentioned too much about his conversations with Luke.

As she watched, Master Windu’s face firmed into resolution. “First, prove to me that your information is worth making this deal.”

Finally, Mara’s smile was genuine, though she kept looking far from nice. “Fine. The greatest obstacle to your Jedi returning to the Light is that they don’t think it’s possible. Everyone telling Luke that he’s dead and they’re talking to the thing that killed him? Well, it only makes my job easier if he’s too busy hating himself for Falling to return to the Light. The second obstacle is that your Order deprives its members of something they could want more than the addictive rush of the Dark Side, because they’re not supposed to want anything that much.”

“Contrary to popular belief, the Order bans neither emotion nor friendship nor desire.”

“No, but you do ban love. And you know what? The Emperor’s Apprentice, the one who returned to the Light? He only did so to save the life of someone he loved.” Mara leaned forward with a flourish. Her mostly suppressed sense of theatrics made her wish for the yellow contacts again. “And if that’s not enough? The Jedi Order falls in six months.”

Windu stilled, impossibly, even further than his usual demeanor. That was the piece of information the Jedi had been trying to get more than anything, and until that moment, they’d failed.

But Mara didn’t think she would need to hold her largest bargaining chips in reserve much longer.

Master Windu said nothing—admitted nothing—as he escorted her back to her cell. But the lines in his face had faded ever so slightly, and his bearing had lightened a touch, and he looked almost grateful toward a woman that he thought was a Sith.

She hoped he’d manage to save whoever it was he so cared for.

\---

A mental sigh echoed into Obi-Wan’s portion of his own mind. _They’re not Sith, you know._

Obi-Wan—still in control of his own body, and in the middle of finishing up his swashbuckler—started. _Excuse me?_

_Luke and Vexion—or rather, Mara Jade. They’re not Sith._

_So we were correct in our deduction that they are more run-of-the-mill Darksiders. Interesting, given how much power the Sith apparently come to hold in the future. But why, exactly, are you choosing now to tell me this?_

Another mental sigh, this one louder and more pointed. It was also, Obi-Wan was fairly sure, entirely for effect. _They’re not Darksiders at all, actually. They’re undercover Jedi._

 _…You can understand why I find that hard to believe. Particularly given the number of times they have pointedly and belligerently remarked on the fact that they are Sith_.

 _Yes, well, I did say they were undercover, did I not?_ The voice in Obi-Wan’s head was wry—and underneath the age, that wryness felt dangerously familiar.

 _Do you have any proof, or am I just supposed to take this on faith?_ Obi-Wan very carefully placed the datapad at his side before he was tempted to do something foolish with it.

Like hit himself in the head in hopes it would hurt the entity too.

 _Not on me, no,_ came a humor-tinged response.

_The why in the Galaxy should I believe a word you say, in the face of every piece of evidence to the contrary?_

There came a pause, and a sense of thinking. _I’m going to stop you from telling anyone about all of this if you try_ , the voice sent, which made this topic no different than pretty much everything else. _Luke Skywalker didn’t break his own Force binders in the cell. They never worked._

… _Never?_

 _Including when Mara was supposedly torturing him. They were in on it together. To my understanding, Mara generally pretended to invade Luke’s mind and torture him, and then they’d spend time relaxing on Luke’s mental construct of a beach._ It came with an impression of _kids these days_ , as if Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade weren’t both Obi-Wan’s age.

_And I’m sure the beach was perfectly tranquil._

_Well, to be honest, Mara may have been lying to me about that,_ the voice sent. _Mara is a very private person, and it is damnably hard to tell when she is being sarcastic. If you ask me,_ which Obi-Wan certainly hadn’t _, they were likely sparring half the time—more in character for both of them. Probably there was some luxurious locale too, but Luke inherited his father’s hatred of sand, and neither Luke nor Mara enjoys being idle._

Obi-Wan ignored the attempt to draw him into a fake confidence wholeheartedly.

 _They’re like us in that regard_ , came the next thought.

And Obi-Wan snapped. _I am **nothing** like you._

Another sigh. _What more must I do to prove it? Divulge more of our secrets? All right, the only reason we insisted the Council lie to Anakin about the Rako Hardeen affair was that we were trying to prove that attachment wasn’t a problem—for Anakin, or for us._

Obi-Wan’s gaze whited out. The Rako Hardeen affair, by unspoken but firm agreement of all involved, _was not discussed_ —

But the damning assessment continued. _In retrospect, that was stupid; no one on the Council thought we had a significant problem with attachment—except, of course, for us._

Obi-Wan slammed up the thickest wall he could manage between himself and the entity. So thick that any thoughts it sent couldn’t penetrate.

With a jaw so clenched he would give himself a migraine and hands trembling with…with—and with trembling hands, he grasped the datapad and almost pounded the screen on, determined to finish his novel in the face of everything.

Ten minutes later, and he had to admit that he hadn’t registered a single one of the words his eyes had frantically scanned by.

Twenty minutes later his body had ceased to feel like he would vibrate out of his skin.

Thirty minutes later, he slowly, tentatively, lowered his shields.

Initially, there was silence in his mind. Only his own apprehension. Then, slowly, a gentle but deep wave of apology.

Taking a deep breath, Obi-Wan snapped out a thought before it could get in a response. _You will explain why you didn’t tell me earlier, and you will do it now._

The impression of a self-deprecating chuckle, still tinged with regret. _I miscalculated a tad, I’m afraid. Uncharacteristically, I was too optimistic._

 _About the chances of me believing you?_ Obi-Wan sent, his jaw clenching.

_Well, yes. Given that the Order had accepted the prisoners were telling the truth about the fall of the Republic, I planned to explain in more detail once you believed me about Anakin’s Fall and my identity. Mara didn’t want to risk being exposed if you might prove able to tell the Council, and Luke reluctantly agreed with her. I confess I had hoped that you would not so easily believe the worst of yourself._

Jedi Masters did not lose their tempers. And he had already done it once. _And what **else** was I supposed to believe when you possessed my body and used it to start helping the Sith?_

The entity paused before answering, a pause that seemed almost regretful. _I had hoped you would assume that you had your reasons._

Obi-Wan snorted. _And did I? If, indeed, I accept for a moment than you are indeed who you say you are?_

The entity’s tone, when it came, was astonishingly gentle. _Obi-Wan, you have believed me since Anakin came to confront us. You have just been in denial about it, because you couldn’t bear to accept what that meant: that Anakin would Fall, and in your mind, that you would as well._

Obi-Wan didn’t respond.

_I am so, so sorry it has come to this. I’m afraid I’ve made quite the mess of your life._

Well that bit was certainly true.

_I wish I could assuage all of your concerns, but let me at least soothe those I can. You do not Fall. You spend nineteen years of your life watching over Anakin’s son, and seeing that he grows to adulthood. You hand-carve wooden toy ships for him to play with. You keep him safe. And you see Anakin redeemed in the end. Yes, the end of the war and the fall of the Jedi will be unimaginably painful, but you will not give in. Instead, you will find a purpose._

There was a pause. Then, softer: _It was so, so hard. But I had a purpose. I had Anakin’s son. I had Qui-Gon, in the form of a Force ghost. And so altogether, I had a kind of peace._

Still Obi-Wan said nothing, but unlike his earlier silences, it wasn’t out of anger of spite. He just couldn’t imagine what to say.

 _And that won’t ever happen to you_ , Obi-Wan’s older self said, voice suddenly determined. _It will never happen to you, because we are going to **change** it. Luke and Mara are already working to save Anakin, even from inside their cells. And we will stop all that we can from going wrong._

The silence echoed, and so did the older man’s resolve. Finally, Obi-Wan managed a tentative question: _How do you know the past can even be changed?_ He wasn’t sure whether or not he was afraid of the answer.

 _Because we are already here,_ the answer came, solid and firm as Obi-Wan’s own flesh.

 _After all,_ the ghost added, voice lighter, _I certainly don’t remember being possessed by my future self and thrown in a cell for the better part of a week_.

Obi-Wan laughed. He was shocked at himself even as he did it, but laughter kept pouring out of his mouth, sounding half-hysterical and half…like healing. _Fine. Fine!_ he sent. _You’re me, you’re from the future, we have to save Anakin and the whole Republic with the help of two imprisoned fake Sith—it is only two, right? The bounty hunter and the Inquisitor are actual bad guys?_

He would have expected the laughter he got in return to infuriate him, after everything, but somehow it didn’t. _Yes, the bounty hunter and the Inquisitor are actual bad guys._ Then came the impression of a smile that was so strong that Obi-Wan could feel his mouth trying to widen, even though he was still in control. It was perhaps the first time he and his future self had knowingly agreed on anything.

 _Welcome to the team, then, Obi-Wan_ , the voice sent. _You can call me Ben._


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Sorry this is late; I had one last scene to write and it was really fighting me. But now we're free, clear, and approaching the end! Thanks as always to SapphiraBlue for the beta, cheerleading, getting me this far, and loving Mara Jade as much as I do.
> 
> As an apology for the lateness/since people were interested, I'm going to post one of the snippets tomorrow afternoon! (The other snippet will come later.) Let me know in the comments whether you'd rather see the start of Luke and Mara's mission, or Luke and Ahsoka interacting in a version of this fic with a different setting. Also, look for it on the series page, because they won't necessarily have all the same subfandoms tagged as this one.

“I’m sorry to say,” Mara started, having just swallowed a bite of some sort of greenish tuber, “this is still better than the food you two managed to scrounge up for our last operation.”

Volyn took a pointedly large bite of her breakfast as she rolled her eyes. “Relax,” she drawled, talking while chewing in what was at least fifty percent an effort to irritate Mara. “Food is food. Sorry we didn’t have enough courses for you,” she swallowed, “but not all of us grew up in the Emperor’s Court.”

Volyn’s class anxieties were one of her only weak spots. An Imperial loyalist though she might have been, she had still grown up in the Outer Rim, and thus was seldom seen as respectable by the officials of the Empire she wanted to restore.

“More’s the pity,” Mara drawled, cutting her next tuber into dainty pieces with the side of her plastoid fork—the Jedi had apparently not wanted to risk giving them knives. “It might have taught you not to talk with your mouth full.”

Mara had tried not irritating Volyn. It hadn’t gotten her anywhere.

“Who cares?” the Inquisitor snapped. “We are all united in service to the Empire—and the past ten years, Volyn has been far more dedicated to that effort than _you_.”

Mara didn’t let herself flinch. This was the first time either had let on any sign they’d managed a _successful_ background check, impressively long for the Inquisitor if they actually had.

But had they, or was it a guess?

“It’s nice that she’s convinced you of that,” Mara replied, smile sickly sweet.

Any background check couldn’t have been _that_ successful, because they hadn’t found out about her marriage to Luke. Which had been a private ceremony and had stayed relatively private as news, but which wasn’t exactly classified.

Volyn snorted. “Yeah, and your work for the Empire after it fell all just _happened_ to be either top secret or for dead people.”

Luke was staring down at his plastoid tray as he ate his tubers in an unassuming silence.

“Are you questioning my dedication?” Mara asked, brow raised. “You have proof of it right here: no one who wanted the pathetic excuse for a government that is the New Republic to remain would have corrupted Luke Skywalker.”

“And a beautiful corruption it has been,” the Inquisitor agreed, eyes narrowed. “But it doesn’t answer for what you did in the meantime.”

“You haven’t voiced any questions about my loyalty or professionalism before.”

“Yeah, I did,” Volyn drawled, “and you threw a knife at my face.”

“I threw a knife _next_ to your face,” Mara sniffed. “I provided you with a list of my involvements, and of the ways I used my smuggling connections to strengthen what remained of the Empire. But if you need more proof, well, you’ll have it as soon as we get back to our own time and you set me loose on those children.”

After all, Mara had a topic to keep circling back to.

At that, Volyn’s mouth twisted into a genuine grimace. “ _If_ we ever get back.”

“We will,” the Inquisitor said, voice condescending. “The Force will provide.”

“And if it doesn’t,” Mara said, “we will.”

“All actions we take,” the Inquisitor’s voice started to lean into a growl, “will be through the guidance of the Dark Side of the Force.”

“ _Right_.” Mara suspected that Volyn’s eyes hurt from rolling that hard. “Because the Force is going to scoop up out of these cells and drop us back on Krant so we can have a go at those kids. Uh huh.”

_Krant_.

“Why not?” Luke asked, finally entering the conversation. “It dropped us into the past.”

“Yeah, right in front of the Sith Temple on Krant where we already were in the future.”

Because that was the painful irony of it. Krant was the planet where the kids were being kept. It was also the planet that she and Luke had been on their entire time undercover, and they hadn’t noticed.

That meant the kids were either in Force binders, or in a separate hemisphere, given the range of Luke’s abilities and senses in particular. Probably it was both.

Interrogating people over breakfast was usually a winning strategy—food distracted and relaxed people, and the recent proximity to sleep kept most sentients functioning sub-optimally.

And it had finally, finally been what paid off.

“And what about you, little Jedi?” The Inquisitor sneered. “What are you going to do when we get back to Theenes? Are you going to help us torture the children? Break down their minds and instill their loyalty?”

Theenes, one of the two main cities on Krant. Indeed, on the opposite side of the planet from the Temple where they had set up, but still close enough for easy transportation.

“Of course,” Luke responded, voice perfectly level. “It’s only fitting, is it not? I was to be their Master anyway.”

“Besides,” Mara said, cutting in smoothly, “I’ll be breaking them. And Luke goes where I go. Don’t you, dear?”

Luke’s smile was genuine, but he had thankfully managed to keep it from looking too kind. “Of course, my Master.”

\---

First things first: they needed a way to talk to Luke and Mara. Ben had become convinced that there was nothing more that any of them could do in the Temple, imprisoned as they were. Obi-Wan, as someone who was actually supposed to be there, might have had a chance, but he was locked up as the result of the possession, and even if released, would likely remain under scrutiny. And while he might have been a Councilor, he was still only one man.

Their best solution, Ben had eventually convinced Obi-Wan, was to convince Ahsoka to act as messenger by bribing her with more information on Ben’s status. Obi-Wan rankled at the deception they would be practicing on Ahsoka, now that he was in league with “the entity” and in fact knew all of the details. He rankled even more at making putting her at risk, should she be caught conveying messages between assumed Sith. But it _would_ be possible to convince her, and as Anakin’s Padawan, she had limited access to Luke and Mara. It was the only option that didn’t involve declaring to the Jedi Council either the truth or that there was a presumed-Sith Force ghost running loose, ready to possess more people, so eventually Obi-Wan was convinced.

Ahsoka’s reaction, when they asked her, was suitably suspicious. “And _why_ do you want me to do this?”

“I have my reasons,” Ben answered, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. Given the situation, Obi-Wan suspected he was failing.

“Yeah, and for all I know those reasons are to tell them to assassinate the next Councilor that comes in to see them. Or to do whatever Luke did to Obi-Wan all over again.”

“I promise, there will be no assassinations, and there are no other Force ghosts waiting in the wings to possess someone.”

Ahsoka’s eyes narrowed. “You confirmed that, as far as you know, Force ghosts can’t usually possess people. You haven’t told me why you can possess Obi-Wan.”

“Another show of good faith: my circumstances are…unique. I couldn’t have possessed anyone else if I had wanted to, even with Luke’s help. There are no other Force ghosts lurking about, even if there were, they probably couldn’t possess anyone.”

Ahsoka inhaled slowly, then exhaled at the same pace. “I get veto rights if I think something is fishy about the message.”

Ben inclined Obi-Wan’s head. Which used to be his own head. Which was a giant mind trip. “Agreed.”

“And what do I get if I agree? For this, it better be something good.”

_That’s a good question_ , Obi-Wan sent, because they had debated what to offer her, but had decided to make an offer based on Ahsoka’s initial responses to their proposal. Flexibility was key. And honestly, there were very few things they could offer her that were significant enough to trade for such a favor.

 “I could tell you whether you survive the fall of the Jedi.”

Ahsoka’s answer was quick and resolute. “I don’t want to know.”

No longer being aggressively suppressed, between his strong emotions and Ben’s own shock, Obi-Wan was able to take control almost on accident. “What do you mean you don’t want to know? Are you resigned to dying?”

Ahsoka favored him with a look far more unreadable than she usually managed. Even despite the conversation’s alarming turn, Obi-Wan felt a swell of pride. It took a lot for someone he knew well to manage an expression he couldn’t read, and that Ahsoka had spoke well to her growing abilities as a Jedi.

Ahsoka stared at him for a long moment before slowly asking, “If I did die with the Jedi, would you tell me how? Would you tell me how to avoid it?”

_Of course I would_ —meaning that Ben had better too, or else he truly had become someone unrecognizable. To think that he would become someone who had decided to change the past, but would leave his Grandpadawan to her fate… _You_ would _tell her, yes?_ he sent.

_Of course I would,_ Ben answered with a similar vehemence. _But luckily, I don’t have to; she survives not only to the end of the Republic, but to the end of the Empire._

The unpleasant thought occurred to Obi-Wan that they were trying to change the future, and that it was impossible to know what all of the ripple effects would be.

In his contemplation, Ben took over to answer. “I would. I promise.” His voice was as solemn as Obi-Wan had ever heard, and he looked absolutely sincere.

Once again, Ahsoka stared at them in measuring silence. At least a minute passed before she finally spoke. “That’s not what I want from you.”

“Oh?” Ben raised an eyebrow. “I take it you have something in mind.”

“Yeah.” Ahsoka swallowed, but her face was solid determination. “Your name.”

“…Excuse me?”

“In return for playing messenger, I want your name.”

“What makes you think you’ll recognize it?” Ben cautiously asked. It wasn’t as if his name would be in any of the books she was using for research—though she had no way of knowing that. Perhaps she thought he was the Force ghost of a historical Sith? “Especially as I’m from the future. Are you sure you want to waste this request?”

Obi-Wan, meanwhile, wasn’t sure how to take any of this. Even assuming Ahsoka wanted the name for her research, it was one they could ill afford to give. Still… _Are you going to lie to her?_ The thought was unpleasant.

_I’m honestly not sure_ , came the response.

At the same time, Ahsoka said out loud, “Yeah. I’m sure.”

Obi-Wan was shoving Ben suggestions on what they could offer instead when he felt a wave of startlement. “You have a theory,” Ben stated.

Ahsoka smiled. “Yes.”

_Would you mind…?_ Ben asked. And it would still be a gamble, but one with much lower odds of going wrong. Obi-Wan sent his assent. “I have a counteroffer,” Ben said. “Tell me your theory, and I’ll tell you if you’re correct.”

Doubt flashed across Ahsoka’s face, but the next instant, her expression was even more determined than before. “Agreed,” she said. “Master Obi-Wan.”

\---

Ben raised one of their eyebrows. “You would like to speak with Councilor Kenobi before your guess?” He had made his tone both confused and dubious, in what Obi-Wan knew was a last-ditch attempt at changing Ahsoka’s mind.

If it had been Obi-Wan speaking, he probably would have gone with a similar statement, but it would also have been because he would have defaulted to evasion from utter surprise, because _when_ had Ahsoka—

Ahsoka was grinning that predatory grin. “You know that’s not what I’m asking.” Her fangs gleamed even in the subpar lighting of the cell. “We had a deal. I think you’re Master Obi-Wan from the future. Yes or no.”

Out loud, there was silence. In Obi-Wan’s head, however… _Would you mind if I did tell her?_ Ben asked. _I don’t want to put her at risk, but…_

_Are you actually considering this?_

_If she figured it out on her own when no one else did? Yes._ A wistful sigh. _I never saw the Knight Ahsoka grew up to become while I was alive. But when I did see her—Force, Obi-Wan, she was magnificent. And I think she is well on her way to becoming that woman._

Yes, Ahsoka would be a great Knight someday, but she was only sixteen. Then again, she had also been fighting a war for two years, doing more than even the Jedi liked to ask of teenagers. But this… _I suppose if she figured it out, she is already part of this. But I want to shield her from the fallout as much as we can. And I do_ not _want to tell her than Anakin Falls unless absolutely necessary._

_Agreed_.

“Yes, Ahsoka,” Ben said with Obi-Wan’s smile. “You’re correct.”

Ahsoka fist pumped. “I _knew_ it!”

Ben gave an indulgent chuckle. “Now that we’ve established that, do I need to separately establish that I’m not a Sith, or can I jump straight to asking how you knew?”

Ahsoka smiled at him. “Nah, you’re good. I mean, yeah, all this looks pretty sketchy, but I believe you had your reasons. And besides, one-on-one, you definitely don’t act like someone who Fell.”

“Oh? And what do I act like?”

“My doting, old Grandmaster. Which is how I found you out.”

Ben only smiled wider. “Yes, well. The thought of pretending to want to hurt you did rather pain me.”

Ahsoka’s face softened. Obi-Wan understood the feeling all too well; under the stringent culture of the Jedi Order, displays of a deep, genuine caring for others could be rare.

“Before you ask,” Ben continued, “I told Obi-Wan a while ago. He took some time to believe me, and I genuinely regret the distress I caused him, but we’re currently working together.”

Ahsoka’s face gained just the slightest edge of wariness—clearly, she wanted to trust, but didn’t feel she could risk taking Ben’s statement at face value. “Can I talk to him?” she asked. “No offense of anything, but I’d like to confirm it with him.”

“Of course,” Ben said, nodding, and then Obi-Wan was back in control.

“Ahsoka,” he greeted warmly, on the edge of a rare loss for words. It was the first time he’d talked to her in days without the weight and terror of his possession looming over him. “Thank you for everything these past few days. It means more than you know.”

“Of course, Master,” Ahsoka said, warm and loving and the slightest edge of assessing.

“Normally,” he added, “I’d tell you that next time you get information like that, you really should take it to the Council immediately, regardless of any deals.” Her face started to fall the slightest bit. “But your investigation paid far better dividends than I could have anticipated. And since it would have caused substantial problems for the plans I’m now in on, I must congratulate you instead on such diligent research and,” he winked, “effective negotiating.”

Ahsoka laughed. “High praise, coming from you.”

“But well-earned.” He paused and smoothed out a wrinkle on the front of his tunics. “May I ask, Ahsoka, how you knew when it wasn’t me speaking? My older self managed to impersonate me as effectively as one might expect, given his advantages, and no one else ever noticed.”

“Oh,” Ahsoka said, “yeah. I didn’t know.”

“…Excuse me?”

Ahsoka chuckled again. “Yeah, I mean, I knew it wasn’t you that first time because you wouldn’t have egged Anakin on like that, and I was _pretty_ sure it was deliberate. But mostly? I was just bluffing.”

Obi-Wan reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Bluffing.”

Apparently discovering the lack of actual danger had left Ahsoka feeling rather free with her laughter. “Yep! I have to say, I was _not_ expecting it to work as well as it did.”

“Well.” Obi-Wan exhaled slowly. “I suppose we should all just be glad you succeeded so entirely.” An extended bluff. So his Grandpadawan had learned some subtlety after all—and it certainly hadn’t been from her Master. “Now. About that message.”

\---

The thing was, a sixteen-year-old Padawan wouldn’t be allowed to interrogate a Sith alone. The Jedi generally thought very highly of the abilities of their Initiates and Padawans, and Ahsoka had taken much glee in exploiting the accompanying lack of safety measures on various occasions. But they wouldn’t go quite that far.

And the security measures had been tightened up after the Council had found out what had happened to Obi-Wan. Her days of sneaking into the interrogation rooms were over.

Which meant she had to find some other way to give Ben’s message to Luke without the bounty hunter or the Inquisitor overhearing.

Since their cells were right next to each other, this presented a problem.

Luckily, however, even the most carefully guarded of prisoners couldn’t be kept in a bare cell with only a stone slab for a bunk all the time. And for such high-security prisoners, ones very much in danger of breaking out, no ways out of the cell—no matter how small—could be allowed, nor any exposed metal.

Meaning no drainage pipes for a toilet.

Also, the Jedi weren’t quite crude enough to force their prisoners to resort to public urination.

So each of the four prisoners were escorted to the bathroom a few times a day, and had the ability to request an additional trip via the security team monitoring their cells.

Ahsoka had to admit that crouching in the vents running through the ceiling of the prison bathroom, waiting for Luke to enter, wasn’t the most dignified thing she’d ever done. But her options had been limited, dammit.

After hour three, her dignity was hurting even more.

After the Inquisitor’s extra bathroom trip, she was a little scarred for life.

Finally, after four entire hours, a Temple Guard opened the bathroom door and Luke stepped in.

Determined to act before anything could be pulled out or unzipped, Ahsoka shoved hard on the vent cover, following it and landing as it fell to the floor with a dull clang.

Or rather, as it hit the wall with a dull clang, after Luke Skywalker whirled in alarm and punched it out of midair.

Startled, he whirled on her next—

“Shhhh!” Ahsoka hissed as forcefully as she dared. She hoped to the Force the guards hadn’t heard that. “Ben sent me to talk to you! So chill!”

Luke blinked rapidly. “Ben sent you? Umm—”

“Yeah, I figured out he was the future Master Obi-Wan because I’m just that awesome,” Ahsoka whispered, “which is good because he was probably gonna fail at bribing me to come give you a coded message if I hadn’t.”

“Umm.”

“Or at least I would have given up after hour two in the Force-damned ceiling.”

Luke stared at her in silence for a second, then, seemingly realizing that she didn’t actually expect a response, softly cleared his throat. “So, this message?”

“Oh. Right. Ben said he wanted me to tell you that he says, ‘Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?’ And then he wanted me to ask if tomorrow worked, and if you had a location.”

Luke only blinked once this time. Ahsoka was impressed, because hells if _she_ knew what Ben’s message was supposed to mean.

“Talk about timing,” Luke said with a smile. “Tell Ben that tomorrow works fine, and we got the location about an hour ago. All clear on our end.”

Ahsoka narrowed her eyes. She probably couldn’t trick him into giving her information on the code by being subtle, but… “What’s a stormtrooper?”

Luke grinned wryly. “Long story.”

“We have time.”

“No, actually, we don’t, because I really do need to pee, and eventually that guard’s gonna wonder what’s taking me so long.”

_Fine_. “Fine.” Taking a step back, Ahsoka leapt up, grabbing the bottom of the vent, flipping up into it with a decided flourish, and using the Force to pull the vent cover back up toward her and reattach it.

Then she crawled out of there very, very quickly.

\---

“So Luke apparently knew what you meant, because he said that tomorrow works, and that he got the location like an hour ago,” Ahsoka said, leaning back against the wall across from Obi-Wan’s cell. “So I guess you’re good for, y’know, whatever it is.”

Ben chuckled. “I’m sorry, Ahsoka, I’m afraid we can’t tell you quite yet.”

Ahsoka resisted the urge to pout, because she wasn’t a kid, dammit.

“Fine,” she sighed instead, with maybe a tiny bit of an accidental pout. Nobody was perfect. “Is there anything you _can_ tell me about what you’re planning?”

Ben’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Give us a moment,” he said, and then proceeded to sit there in silence.

Ahsoka was a Jedi Padawan. She kicked ass at patience.

Really, she totally did.

Totally.

Finally, _finally_ , after _five whole minutes_ , Ben spoke again. “Actually, you’ll get your explanation after all. You wanted to know what Luke Skywalker wants to do tomorrow? Well, there is something I would ask of you, my dear Ahsoka.”

\---

It was far into the night when Luke heard a tap-tap-tapping coming from behind his head. From inside Mara’s cell.

Volyn and the Inquisitor were asleep, but Luke had been lying awake with his thoughts. He’d suspected Mara had been too, but hadn’t dwelled on it, given both his desire to actually fall asleep and his painful inability to know for sure.

But apparently she was, indeed, awake. Luke rolled over onto his stomach and stared into her cell. Her pose almost mirrored his, though she had propped herself up higher, at the elbows. The faint glow of the forcefield, almost invisible by day but appropriately reddish by night, illuminated her just enough. It gave the cells an eerie cast, one all too similar to the Sith Temple that Volyn and the Inquisitor had turned into their base when brought a convenient Jedi to torture.

But he wasn’t thinking that, and he really hoped Mara wasn’t either.

_Hi_ , Mara mouthed, the emotions quick but exaggerated, before her lips morphed into a wry grin. _You okay_?

Luke quirked an eyebrow along with his lips, knowing she’d get the gist of _Why wouldn’t I be_?

He had rested his chin on his hands, and his hands on the lukewarm stone of his cell’s bench. It could hardly be a bed, especially given that the Jedi had denied them bedding, uncertain they weren’t a suicide risk.

From what Mara had said of her days in the Empire, Luke supposed their fear was warranted, but even eighteen years gone from Tatooine, he was still easily chilled.

At least the room was decently heated.

Mara bobbed her head in acknowledgement. Then she raised her right index finger, pointing it in the air, and, Luke’s attention caught, brought it down to the surface of her own bench and began to trace out a shape.

No, not a shape, a letter. _I_. Tap, new word. _L…O…V…E…_ Tap. _Y…O…U._

Luke smiled an actual smile for the first time in a couple days, and made the shape of a heart with his hands in response.

Mara rolled her eyes at him, but Luke knew she loved it, because she was secretly a dork too. Just not quite as big of a dork as he was.

Also, she was grinning.

_V…E…R…Y…_ Tap. _D…I…S…C…R…E…T…E._

Then it was Luke’s turn to roll his eyes. Trust Mara to use words like _discrete_ even when forced to spell them out on by one on a cell bench and hope he could make them out in the shadows of the night.

_U…_ Luke tapped, copying Mara’s system. _L…O…V…E…_ Tap. _M…E…_ Tap. _F…O…R…_ Tap. _I…T._

Mara shrugged and nodded, still smiling and for once failing to complain about his abbreviations. Perhaps the situation appealed to her sense of efficiency. Or maybe she was finally ready to admit she’d mostly just been doing that to needle him.

_U..._ Tap. Luke, once again. _K…N…O…_ Tap. _T…H…I…S…_ Tap. _N…O…T…_ Tap.  _U…R…_ Tap. _F…A…U…L..T._

_Y…E…S…_ Mara said, but given that she didn’t say anything more—and also the fact that Luke _knew_ her—Luke knew she wasn’t being entirely honest.

_D…O…N…T…_ Tap. _B…L…A…M…E…_ Tap. _U._

At that, Mara’s gaze grew unfocused. She stared at the bench where Luke’s hand had finished tracing the last letter. Finally, slowly, she responded, _T…H…A…N…K…S._

Luke smiled at her and tried to infuse it with as much of his love and sincerity and absolution as possible.

When she responded, Mara’s mouth had curved into a small but matching grin. _U…_ Tap. _R…E…A…D…Y…_ Tap. _T…O…_ Tap. _G…E…T…_ Tap. _O…U…T…_ Tap. _O…F…_ Tap. _H…E…R…E…_ Then her finger traced a question mark.

_Hah_. Luke was going to use that one tiny instance of Mara lowering herself to shorthand against her for years.

\---

It turned out that there was one thing that Ahsoka Tano hated even more than bathroom ceiling vents, and that was dusty, sectioned-off crawlspaces left in the gaps between the architecture of the current Jedi Temple, and the remains of the ancient Temple structures that formed its foundations.

“No, Ahsoka, it’ll be fine,” she muttered to herself in a sharp parody of Obi-Wan’s Coruscanti accent, “the gaps between the Temple structures are architecturally stable. It’s completely safe, Ahsoka, just a tad dusty.” Then, in her own voice: “Yeah, if you ignore all the fallen beams and jagged metal and the fact that the name crawlspace is _literal_.”

It had not been easy to hunt down a schematic of the construction of the Temple’s current form, and even less easy to do so without throwing up any red flags. If it wasn’t for the special library clearance she’d been given as part of her research into Obi-Wan’s possession, she probably wouldn’t have managed.

But she had. And thus she was so caked in dust she was probably gray.

At least she was _finally_ coming up on the area of the crawlspace that crossed over the ceiling of Obi-Wan’s cell, which lay in the highest surviving level of the last incarnation of the Temple, constructed during the reign of the old Sith Empire.

Not the one that was apparently about to start sometime in the next few years.

Levering herself as upright as possible—which wasn’t much—Ahsoka braced the Force underneath her, pulled out her lightsaber, and slowly and carefully cut a hole in the thick ceiling of Obi-Wan’s cell. For all the time and energy that people put into guarding the walls and doors of cells, if there was one thing Ahsoka had learned in the course of the war, it was that they typically forgot the ceilings. And as a result, it was just thin enough for her lightsaber to cut through.

Circle completed, she increased her pressure in the Force to keep the heavy stone cylinder from falling and crushing Obi-Wan below.

The next moment, she heard a gentle thought in her mind: _Thank you, Ahsoka, I’ll take it from here_. The pressure on her use of the Force decreased as Obi-Wan joined her in supporting the ceiling.

So their plan had worked: the cut had stopped the cell’s Force-disruption.

_Are you just going to hold it up for the next four hours?_ The block was solid stone, and _heavy_.

An impression of a tolerant smile. _Don’t worry, Ahsoka, I’ll manage. They didn’t put me on the Council for my looks, you know_.

They might as well have, to hear some of the Padawans’ gossip, but Ahsoka carefully kept that thought in the confines of her own head.

_Okay, Master. See you in a bit._

After she’d taken a Force-damned shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Krant is a canonical planet, but I also just looked at the "Sith Temples" article on wikipedia and picked a planet that had one that the prequel characters hadn't been to, lol. Bothan space, small population, mainly agricultural, old Sith Temple ruins, and that's all I know about it still lol


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter left??!!!! Honestly that feels kind of unreal to me, and I've known it would be the last chapter for like a month. But honestly, this is both the longest fic I've ever written (though only by a couple thousand words), and the first one over two chapters that I've EVER completed, so that's probably why. Because that, especially that last part, is huge. Being able to look done at your work and say "I had this idea, and then I made it, start to finish" is an amazing feeling, and if you're thinking about posting/writing fic but holding back for any reason (especially that you're self-conscious), I HIGHLY recommend you do so. You got this!
> 
> So thanks again to SapphiraBlue for being absolutely amazing, and enjoy!

The Jedi Temple did not have prison uniforms. Generally, all they did was thoroughly search the clothing of their prisoners and either let them keep them, or switch to spare—clean—tunics. Part of the efforts to keep Obi-Wan comfortable had included allowing his own tunics to be brought to him.

Fortunately, thanks to Ahsoka, Obi-Wan managed to escape without setting off any alarms. Unfortunately, by the time he makes his way out of the crawlspace, out of the areas of the Old Temple, and into a deserted corridor of the new one, he and his tunics ended up rather dusty.

He had the advantage that the Council hadn’t wanted anyone to know that he had been possessed by what they had quite reasonably taken for a Sith, and thus only the Council, Ahsoka and Anakin, and the members of the Temple Guard knew he should be in a cell rather than walking the halls. That still left enough people, however, that he’d need a hooded cloak to make his way around. Which, conveniently, gave him an excuse to indulge what he could acknowledge was a hedonistic desire to be in a clean Force-damned robe, as well as quickly shove some things in a small bag. Including, thanks to the Council’s deference to his comfort, mixed with their unadmitted terror of what had happened to him, his lightsaber.

In control of his own body—since, as Ben had pointed out, it _was_ rightly his, and also Obi-Wan was more familiar with the layout of the Temple—Obi-Wan made his Temple quarters his first stop, changed into fresh tunics, grabbed a hooded cloak, and made his way toward the cell complex that held Luke and Mara.

A complication: the guards in front of Luke and Mara’s cells and in the attached interrogation complex _did_ know that he was supposed to be imprisoned.

But Obi-Wan hadn’t been made the youngest Councilor in centuries for nothing.

The corridor approaching the cell complex was narrow and empty: an easily defended bottleneck with full visibility. He kept the hood of his cloak up as he walked up to them, ignoring calls for him to halt.

Before they could escalate to sounding the alarm, Obi-Wan used the Force—his first major Force use in _days,_  aside from the ceiling of his cell,it felt like he was awake again after years asleep—to pin them in place, unmoving. The guards couldn’t reach for their weapons, nor for their comms to alert anyone.

They might have broadcast their distress through the Force, but the next second Obi-Wan employed his sense of the anatomy of the guards under their masks—both human or near-human enough for this to work—and pinched each of their carotid arteries shut.

He didn’t like to do it; such use of the Force had always felt far too Gray to him, too close to a Force choke. But attempting to influence the mind of someone as powerful and well-trained as the Temple Guards would have had to be flat-out Dark to succeed.

Blockage of the carotid arteries caused quick unconsciousness in most near-human species—and indeed, both of the guards sagged in his grip after approximately fifteen seconds, and he dropped them immediately. He had no desire to cause either permanent damage, and as he approached them, bent down to send a brief pulse of Force healing through each. Nothing complicated, and certainly not enough to wake them up, but enough to support their brains attempts to heal and ensure they would make complete recoveries.

Then all Obi-Wan had to do was swipe the access card for the cells from the belt of one of the guards, open the door, and walk in.

The cells were part of a prison and interrogation complex, and at the end of the hall were two more guards, positioned directly outside of the door to the cells. Obi-Wan repeated the process with displeasure—he could do what needed to be done, but the thought of attacking his fellow Jedi in the Jedi Temple, especially after having heard what happened to the Jedi, especially having spent the better part of a week thinking he would Fall…

But he would do what needed to be done, and with long practice, he was the picture of Jedi serenity when he grabbed the interior access card and opened the door to the cells.

Immediately, the four occupants turned to look at him. All four presumably knew that he had been possessed, given that the Council would have interrogated him, but Obi-Wan wasn’t sure if Volyn and the Inquisitor had any guesses as to what had actually happened, or Ben’s allegiance.

 _Probably not,_ Ben murmured in the back of his mind. _Mara and Luke would never let on, and our friends here have no reason to assume that they have any ghostly allies in this time. Mara and Luke likely tried to persuade them that I was an unknown Force ghost attached to the Sith Temple who was brought back with them, and I think that Mara in particular is skilled enough to mislead them_.

So that could be useful, then.

 _But that doesn’t mean they don’t have doubts_ , Ben added softly. But doubts wouldn’t matter, Obi-Wan knew—Ahsoka had used one of the general Council access codes he knew to loop the recordings in the cells, and with any luck, by the time someone noticed the unconscious guards, it wouldn’t matter what Volyn and the Inquisitor thought to tell the Jedi.

Obi-Wan wasted only a faint moment in going to release Mara—who met his gaze with wary assessment—and Luke—who was just happy to see him. Neither said anything that might give their enemies a hint, but Volyn and the Inquisitor were vocal enough to make up for it.

“I knew it!” The Inquisitor hissed. “The Force supports our mission—it has sent an ancient Sith to free us!”

Volyn’s gaze, however, was pure skepticism to the Inquisitor’s religious fervency. “So, does this mean you’re on our side?” she asked, as Obi-Wan held the bars of Luke’s cell open for him.

“Not quite, I’m afraid.” Obi-Wan smiled as he pointedly headed toward the door instead of Volyn’s cage.

Luke and Mara followed him easily, to the shouts and alarm of the Inquisitor and the snarled insults of Volyn. But this was one element of the breakout with which Obi-Wan felt only at peace: while he hadn’t had to put up with Volyn and the Inquisitor for nearly as long as Luke and Mara, nor under the same circumstances, he certainly joined them in being glad to leave the two behind.

As soon as the door to the cells was closed behind them, Obi-Wan was swept up in Luke’s embrace. Somehow, he managed to suppress any signs of startlement.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Luke said, smile audible but not visible from the angle of his head.

“I’m glad too,” Obi-Wan answered, concealing a touch of awkwardness. He may have known Luke quite well in the future, but Obi-Wan’s only experiences with him had taken place across an interrogation table. And he had not been particularly well-inclined toward what he had thought to be the Sith that had killed and replaced Anakin’s enormous code violation of a son. Pitied him, given the torture that had induced his state, but the foundations for such care, that was not. Knowing that none of that was true—well, except the code violation part—made him more well-inclined toward Luke, but it didn’t mean he knew the man. “However, I suspect you want to speak to my…counterpart.”

Luke pulled back and turned that glowing smile on him. “Of course I miss and care about him, and yes, the hug was mostly for him. But I’m glad to see you’re okay too.” A huff. “After all, I didn’t spend all of our interactions thinking you were evil.”

Obi-Wan didn’t know what to say to that, but he managed a tentative smile.

“Where did they keep our effects?” Mara asked, with what had to be a purposefully well-timed interruption—one Obi-Wan was grateful for. Ben may have cared greatly for Luke, but _he_ was arguably just meeting the man, given the charade.

Obi-Wan cleared his throat and swiped them into a secured side-room at the front end of the corridor, used to keep the belongings of prisoners on hand in case they could be studied or used in an interrogation. That accessibility was a trade-off with security, but one that he appreciated at that moment.

With a triumphant grin, Mara grabbed the pack she had had at her feet when she had appeared out of thin air. Setting it on the table, she pulled out the items and inventoried it as quickly and efficiently as Obi-Wan had ever seen.

Luke, meanwhile, went for the lightsabers they’d been arrested with—Luke’s green blade, Mara’s, and an extra presumably meant for a “Fallen” Luke, the latter two of which had bled an angry crimson. Obi-Wan steeled himself to not say anything about the fact that they would be taking the corrupted sabers. He knew they were the only sabers that Luke and Mara had, and raiding the Temple stores for parts was not an option.

But to his surprise, as Luke set the two red blades on the table—Obi-Wan could practically feel the hatred and Darkness pulsing through them from where he was standing—Luke turned to Mara and said, “Can we please leave these here?”

And at the same moment, Mara finished fiddling with something at the very bottom of her bag. The fabric shifted, Obi-Wan heard a dull, plastoid thud, and the next second Mara had pulled out a lightsaber that none of the Jedi’s examinations of the bag had found.

The new lightsaber sang with the Light.

And it was Anakin’s. Older, more worn, more scuffed, but undeniably Anakin’s.

“No, Luke,” Mara said as she clipped Anakin’s lightsaber onto her belt. Why she was using it, rather than Luke, Obi-Wan couldn’t fathom, but Luke was hooking the green blade onto his waistband as she spoke. “They’re too valuable for going undercover, as we have just thoroughly demonstrated.”

Luke frowned. “The crystals don’t deserve to be in that kind of pain. We should leave them, or better yet purify them.”

Mara just sighed. “We’ll discuss it later.”

Obi-Wan rather expected that she didn’t intend to change her position, but then again, Mara had surprised him before.

They all knew they needed to get moving, which is why Mara didn’t shift from shoving everything neatly back into her bag even as she spoke. Nor as Luke stepped over and hugged her from behind.

 _I hadn’t known they were close_ , Obi-Wan thought to himself. He’d hoped that they trusted each other well, given everything they had acted out, but he had assumed they were just working partners…

 _Well, they **are** married_ , Ben sent.

_…What._

_I’m told it was a lovely ceremony_ , Ben continued, utterly nonchalant, _although interrupted rather more frequently than anyone would have preferred. Politics._ The impression of a humorous sigh. _They never change_.

Well, that was…that was. Something. Hesitating, Obi-Wan almost sent a quick question as to whether Ben was fucking with him, but then Luke leaned over and kissed Mara, who looked younger and lighter than he’d ever seen her, and…

Obi-Wan gave them twenty seconds before he cleared his throat. “Shall we?” he asked. “I brought extra cloaks.”

\---

Mara had taken almost too quickly to the technique to disguise her Force signature, back when he’d started teaching her during their nightly planning sessions, in anticipation of this very need. Luke had grasped the skill more slowly despite his greater raw strength, a fact which Obi-Wan wasn’t sure what to make of, but which Ben credited to Luke’s general honest nature. For all he had been a commander in a covert force of guerilla rebels for five years, Luke had never gained Mara’s comfort with deception.

Luke had known how to hide his Force signature entirely, of course—it was one of the first things Ben had taught Luke after his death, knowing Vader would start hunting for the pilot who destroyed the Death Star. But in the heart of the Jedi Temple, someone with no Force signature at all would only bring the guards down on them.

Thankfully, the Temple’s paranoia had not contravened its norms enough that three apparent masters with their hoods up garnered much suspicion—at least, not without an alarm sounding at the time.

“This way,” Obi-Wan said, guiding them with careful casualness. From inside his head, however, Ben could feel his younger self’s tension. He had chosen to believe what Ben had shown him, and chosen to betray the orders of the Council by setting the two free. But that didn’t mean his decision had been easy.

Perhaps luckily, their escape would leave Obi-Wan with little time to think about that.

\---

With a sigh, Anakin put his wrench on the floor rather more forcefully than necessary. He’d spend the afternoon in the ship maintenance bay, working on the _Twilight_ , but it was hard to throw himself into repairs when the _Twilight_ didn’t actually need any of them, and he could only do so many maintenance checks.

Unfortunately, he’d finished all of the necessary planned repairs and all of his planned upgrades two days ago. They had proved a semi-decent distraction from the complete mess his life had become, but that was it.

Heaving another, heavier sigh, Anakin shoved the maintenance compartment closed. He was about to open the one next to it, maybe run a third set of checks on the hyperdrive, when he heard Ahsoka yell, “Hey Anakin! I can’t find the arc welder, can you come here and help me?”

Another sigh, though Snips didn’t deserve his irritation. “Coming!” he called, and headed toward her.

He spent the short walk immersed pretty deeply in his thoughts, but he wasn’t so totally out of it that he didn’t notice three cloaked figures skulking through the ship maintenance bay and toward the hangar. And he really wasn’t too out of it to not notice when one of them turned in response to Ahsoka calling out to him a second time, revealing Obi-Wan’s face beneath the hood.

 _No_. Anakin snarled. That _would not be_. The Sith entity had tormented Obi-Wan long enough, used his body like a puppet to aid the other Sith, forced him to be agree to be arrested and imprisoned for days.

It would not escape the Temple. It would not leave while trapping Obi-Wan in his own mind. It would not use Obi-Wan like this, keeping him prisoner for however long it wanted, until it decided the Sith was bored of his host and _killed his Master_.

Anakin sent as loud a pulse of urgency into the Force as he could, one that would summon the Temple Guard and set off the alarms. Then Anakin was charging, yelling for Ahsoka to follow him. Mustering every scrap of the Force he could, he brought his blade down on the _thing_ controlling his Master, both furious and relieved when it brought up Obi-Wan’s blade to meet him.

He had to win this fight. But as figures turned and hoods fell, Anakin could see he was at a disadvantage: he had to win, but there was only one person he was willing to seriously harm.

And a second disadvantage: he had Ahsoka with him, but as much as he knew he would need every bit of his attention to match the entity—especially if it could steal Obi-Wan’s skills—he couldn’t leave his Padawan to fight the two remaining Sith by herself.

“Go! Start up the ship!” the thing controlling Obi-Wan yelled. Vexion broke off and ran toward the hangar, leaving Anakin without any targets he could kill, but thankfully leaving Ahsoka with only one opponent.

Except that as soon as their blades crossed, Luke shoved her back with the Force and lunged for Anakin instead.

Anakin’s heart was in his throat for an instant, but Ahsoka flipped mid-air and landed on her feet.

Anakin shoved the entity’s blade off, disengaging from their lock, and barely made his parry of Luke’s blade.

Quickly he pivoted back to where the entity was, saber already in guard against the next attack—

But the entity’s turn, the turn Anakin had mistaken for the windup to an aggressive lightsaber attack, had actually been the entity turning to run toward the ship. And taking Obi-Wan’s body with it.

 _Master!_ Ahsoka called. _Should I go after them?_

In the instant of Anakin’s indecision, of his need to muster the concentration to send a response down the training bond, Luke repeated his previous trick, only harder, and Anakin found himself barely able to keep from being slammed into the Jedi Starfighter behind him.

By the time he recovered, the entity was halfway to the hangar. Halfway to taking Obi-Wan prisoner forever, if it wanted. And Luke wasn’t far behind it. His Master and his son, lost to the Sith in one—

No. _No_. Anakin couldn’t think about that. He could only pour the Force into his muscles, give chase as fast as he could manage—

But that Luke and the entity were doing the same. Ahsoka had joined pursuit, had been closer to the hangar door than him, but neither would catch up, not in time.

On the far side of the hangar, Vexion had opened the bay doors of a ship and raced inside. The entity and then Luke trailed close behind her, and Ahsoka and Anakin trailed behind them in a frantic chase.

But they ship would take time to start. Not much, but hopefully enough that Anakin could _do something_.

The abomination controlling Obi-Wan reached the ramp of the transport that they were commandeering. In the back of his mind Anakin noted it was a good shape to make an escape with—good shields, decent weapons, and the fastest small-size passenger transport the Order had. If they made it out of the hangar, they’d be damn hard to catch.

If Obi-Wan were helping them from the inside, somehow, if there was any chance, then this was the time, this was the time he’d have to pull through…but there was no sign of that at all. The entity’s face, resolved, didn’t waver.

Seeing Luke almost at the ramp, the abomination turned and headed farther into the ship. But Luke didn’t follow. At least, not all the way.

Anakin’s son waited at the top of the ramp, lightsaber ignited, as Ahsoka reached the base. _Don’t, Snips,_ he sent, because whatever had happened to the future Jedi, one didn’t become Master of the Order without the lightsaber skills to beat a Padawan.

Anakin was closing with the ship. For once, Ahsoka had listened, waiting warily at the base of the ramp, lightsabers in a cross-guard, ready to engage his son if he tried to attack her.

His son. His _son_.

The most painful, damnable part of it all was that Anakin had thought he’d been making progress with Luke. Sure, he’d been a little on edge about how whether Luke’s occasional non-evilness was faked, but he’d allowed himself to hope that it was—that it wasn’t all just a ruse. He’d thought that Luke had actually wanted to talk to him about ships and how much Tatooine sucked and—when Anakin was absolutely sure no one was around—Padmé.

Maybe it had been real. Maybe it hadn’t been. But either way, Luke had decided to turn his back on the Jedi Order despite running the future one. He’d turned his back on everything Anakin had done for him, tried to offer him.

Probably Luke had done it because that heinous piece of brainwashing redheaded Sithspawn had told him to. But the why—why Luke had _betrayed him_ —would have to wait, because otherwise Luke would…

Would succeed in kidnapping Obi-Wan.

“Stop, Luke! You don’t have to do this! I can _help you_!”

“Sorry, Father,” Luke called out, face an odd mix of uncomfortable and genuinely regretful.

Anakin was closing with the ship. _Closer, closer—_ “Don’t you want to get away from her? After everything she did to you, how can you not hate her?”

Luke’s gaze darted to the inside of the ship just as Anakin stepped onto the bottom of the ramp, but before he could capitalize on the distraction, Luke turned back. “Sorry,” Luke said, a sad smile drawn across his face.

“ _Luke, she’s **enslaving you**_.”

And the discomfort in Luke’s face returned. “I do wish I could come with you. But, uh…you know the Jedi Order was going to execute me no matter what, right?”

Honestly, Anakin was pretty sure Luke wasn’t wrong. Had been fearing the same thing since they had found Luke, his son and already Turned. Thoughts had started to whisper across his brain, _what if_ ’s and _how can you_ ’s. He’d been wracking his brain trying to think of an alternative that wouldn’t mean betraying the Jedi Order himself.

But anything would be better than Luke escaping into the hands of Darth Vexion.

Anakin swallowed. “Come with me instead, Luke. I won’t turn you in.” Anakin resolutely ignoring Ahsoka, whose head jerked around to stare at him. “I’m your father. I’m…It’s my job to take care of you. We’ll run somewhere the Jedi can never find us, we’ll worry about everything else then, just come away with me. Somewhere I can keep you safe.”

Anakin could see Ahsoka’s expression out of the corner of his eye. Part astonished, part betrayed, part immensely saddened. He didn’t want to do this to her, didn’t mean to repudiate her the way that Qui-Gon—as much as he looked up to the man—had repudiated Obi-Wan so long ago.

But what else could he do? The Order was Snips’ life—he couldn’t take that from her. And however much he wanted to protect Luke, wanted to believe that he really _could_ return to the Light, he wasn’t willing to risk a road trip with Ahsoka, a Sith Lord, and no one but him to protect her. Anakin’s chest burned, and the edges of his eyes. He almost opened his mouth to offer for her to come too, but…he couldn’t.

And he wasn’t sure he could take Luke away either, because past the initial rush of adrenalin and fear, one important fact as rushing back at him: Obi-Wan was already a captive, and one hidden far inside the ship.

“Join me instead, Luke. Between you, me, and Ahsoka, we can take Vexion out. We can make it so that she’ll never hurt you again. We can knock out whatever thing possessed Obi-Wan, and then we can figure out how to save him too. It’ll be so much easier with your help. And we can all leave together,” unless Ahsoka didn’t want to, or he acted on the fact that taking Ahsoka was a terrible idea, but dramatic and moving speeches were not the moment for caveats. “And we’ll go from there. We can get to know each other, like we should have had years to do. Please, Luke. Join me.”

Luke appeared more taken aback than Anakin had ever seen the man. For a Sith Lord, he’d retained an eerie amount of unflappability, compared to the likes of Ventress and even Dooku. Finally, he returned a wry, self-deprecating smile. “You probably won’t believe that she hasn’t been hurting me, huh?”

 _Fuck. No_. “No! Because what she didn’t tell me about what she did to you, and believe me, that was _plenty_ , the Inquisitor and bounty hunter made quite clear during their interrogations. For _some reason,_ they thought that might be a good way to _hurt me_.”

Luke took a long, slow breath. Inhale, hold, exhale, just like proper meditation breaths. Then, he spoke. “I’m sorry, Father.” And slowly he began to retreat back into the ship’s loading bay.

Anakin didn’t want to act. The absolute last thing he wanted to do was fight his son. The thought of hurting Luke almost killed him inside, but he couldn’t let Luke get away either. Not with Obi-Wan as a captive, and not with Vexion as a captor.

Attacking Luke was the only way to save him. So Anakin drew a deep breath of his own and lunged up ramp, Ahsoka close behind him.

Lightsabers crashed with a hum that ground through Anakin’s bones. Anakin pushed down with his saber as hard as he could, trying to leverage his height, trying to overwhelm Luke’s strength so that he could twist his son’s blade away, disarm him, and end the fight quickly. But even with a week of relative idleness and ten days of brutal torture before that, Luke was in surprisingly good shape. Almost impossibly so, Anakin thought for not the first time, as their lightsabers sparked against each other.

Metal ground against metal. Machinery pumped and hissed.

Anakin pushed down abruptly in a sudden strike, rather than the long and sustained pressure he had been using, and used the force of it to propel himself backwards, away from Luke and off of his saber, jumping back and disengaging.

But Anakin was too late. The ship’s bay door had closed behind him. And behind Ahsoka.

Anakin whirled on the Luke. There was stupid, there was Sith-brainwashing-induced stupid, and then there was locking your enemy in your ship with you.

The entity and Vexion were nowhere to be seen. And the ship deck was beginning to vibrate with the slowly increasing roar that meant the engines had been started.

“I sent for reinforcements before I attacked!” Anakin yelled. “They know you’re here, you’ll never get clearance to leave the hangar. But if you join me, my clearance might be able to get us out. Please, Luke, I’m your only chance!”

“That might be true,” a familiar voice called out from the corridor behind the loading bay. The entity strode into view as it talked, voice painfully reminiscent of one Obi-Wan’s patented lectures. “Except that the Jedi Council didn’t wish to inform anyone except the Temple Guard about my circumstances. Thus, the hangar staff was not informed, and it turns out that a Councilor’s passcodes are rather useful for a prison break. We’re already cleared for takeoff.”

Anakin whirled to face the entity as much as he could while keeping Luke in his sight. He opened his mouth to speak, but the entity beat him to it.

Except the entity didn’t sound like it had seconds before. Instead of the familiar voice of his Master twisted to nefarious ends, the sound Anakin heard was doubled, somehow, two different voices coming out of the same throat, one familiar, one deeper and hoarser, spoken exactly in tandem, the voice and its own simultaneous, distorted echo. And in exact unison, Obi-Wan’s two voices spoke:

“Hello, Anakin.”

At that moment Anakin heard the clank of the landing gear retracting, felt the sway of the ship launch into the air.

He raised his saber, about to lunge at the entity again, when Luke reached into the pockets of his robes and pulled out something small, round, with a clunky switch on top—

Luke pulled the pin and the room flooded with smoke.

Anakin inhaled as deep as he could, knowing he’d need to hold it, but a lightsaber fight without air—

The entity retrieved two gas masks from a sealed cabinet and tossed one to Luke.

Anakin closed the short distance between him and Luke and swung, knowing any hope of winning—Force, maybe even of surviving—depended on getting a gas mask immediately.

His lungs were already on fire.

Luke blocked the blow with ease, eyes visible over the black seal of the gas mask over his nose.

Their blades locked at an impasse, Anakin risked the quickest glance back at Ahsoka. She was smaller, she might have passed out already, she might try to attack the entity even though it had probably stolen all of Obi-Wan’s skills—

Ahsoka had just finished securing a gas mask around her face.

Black spots dotted Anakin’s vision. His arms were weakening, and so was his side of the blade lock.

Anakin couldn’t open his mouth to yell at Ahsoka, not questions, not recriminations, not incoherent noises of confusion.

Funny. He didn’t usually want to make incoherent noises.

The ship was moving. Or was his head just swimming that much?

The last thing Anakin heard before he passed out was the snap of a lightsaber shutting off, followed by a very familiar sigh.

He was supposed to hate that sigh, he knew distantly, but it was so, so familiar, and he couldn’t quite remember why…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You have no idea how much fun I had writing Anakin's "Join me, Luke...turn to the Light!" spiel. The sheer, concentrated irony.
> 
> Also!! You may notice that **this series has a part 2 now!!** That's the brief prequel to this fic with the start of Luke and Mara's mission, and I'll post the Luke and Ahsoka snippet probably tomorrow.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the final chapter. Wow. Okay. I'm kind of shocked that we're here because, as I said in the notes last chapter, this is both the first long fic I've ever completed and the longest fic I've ever written. And the last time I wrote something over 10k? Was almost eight years ago. But we're here and it happened. 
> 
> Thank you to all of you who have read this, enjoyed it, commented, subscribed, bookmarked, kudos'd, and otherwise supported me. Shoutout to my discord server for being supportive and awesome. Thanks to my friends Katie and Anj for letting me go on and on about this to you, and as always, tremendous thanks to SapphiraBlue for being a fantastic beta, cheerleader, and enabler. This fic would look very different without them, if it even existed. And an even bigger thanks because as of last night they're helping me brainstorm the sequel!
> 
> Enjoy!

Anakin woke to the sound of nearby voices and a pain in his neck from where it had stretched too far and his head drooped down over his chest.

Still bleary, he couldn’t think where he was, or why he’d fallen asleep upright, but he could hear Obi-Wan’s voice, so it must all have been—

Then Anakin tried to shift and felt the binders around his wrists.

In a flash of panic, everything came rushing back.

_Binders—!_ The ones that they would have already had access to were—immediately, Anakin reached out, and was beyond relieved to realize he could still touch the Force.

“Master!” A voice called, and then Ahsoka was in front of him, eyes wide and worried.

She was unbound.

Before he’d passed out—before Luke had _drugged him_ —she’d been putting on a gas mask. She’d known exactly where to find it. She had watched, still and silent, as Anakin faltered and fell.

“Ahsoka,” Anakin said, voice raspy from sleep and whatever the fuck they’d dosed him with, “what have you _done_?”

Ahsoka swallowed even as she squared her shoulders and set her jaw. He knew that look of determination too well. Ahsoka might apologize, but she clearly wasn’t about to take her actions back.

“Sorry, Master,” she said, so at least he could still read his Padawan a _little_ , however much she’d just made herself a stranger. Working with the Sith—Anakin didn’t even know where to start with that one. “It’s not what it looks like,” Ahsoka began, voice conciliatory, but unless she’d been coerced or blackmailed, Anakin wasn’t sure he wanted to listen. But if she had been, if his Padawan was in trouble, he had to—

“But I’m going to let Master Obi-Wan explain it to you,” Ahsoka finished.

The body of Anakin’s Master appeared in the doorway in response to Ahsoka’s words. The mind of Anakin’s Master, however…

Obi-Wan walked into the cramped, metal room where Anakin was tied up. Of course it was metal, he realized—they were still on the ship. Personnel quarters, he was finally awake enough to recognize his new prison as, gray and utilitarian.

Ahsoka’s eyes darted between the two of them once, twice, before she said, sounding way, way too perky, “Cool. I’m gonna be out there.” The gesture was accompanied by the galaxy’s vaguest pointing, which Anakin assumed meant “anywhere but here.”

Ahsoka turned and left without waiting for a response from either of them.

“You probably won’t believe me,” Obi-Wan began once she was gone, in what had become a familiar refrain, “but I am Obi-Wan Kenobi. I am in control of my own body. And I _am_ sorry that it came to this.”

Anakin could respond to that. Force knew he’d yelled enough invective at the _thing_ pretending to be his Master these past few days. But given where that had gotten him…

Anakin was so, so tired.

He’d keep fighting eventually, of course. He always did. But faced with the loss of his Master, his son, and his Padawan…

“Anakin,” not-Obi-Wan’s voice came, gratingly gentle. “Please look at me.”

Anakin very pointedly stared at the wall instead.

The only response was a slowly drawn breath. “I understand that, after everything, it must seem impossible to believe me. But this time, I come bearing proof.” Out of the corner of his eye, Anakin could see the body of his Master turn in the direction of the door. “Now would be a good time for you to join us.”

Anakin angled his stare at a portion of the wall closer to the door while the entity wasn’t looking. He needed to see the new enemy, but he also wasn’t about to give the entity the satisfaction.

Anakin was expecting Luke or Vexion. Maybe even Volyn or the Inquisitor, scooped up somehow after the escape, because the way his day was going it figured he’d be outnumbered six-to-one instead of four-to-one.

But that wasn’t what he got.

Anakin’s first surprise was that the door didn’t open. His second surprise was that a blue-tinted shape started melting through the door anyway. That part was surprising enough that he actually turned to look, and saw an old man, translucent and blue, with white hair and a considerable beard, wearing beaten-up Jedi tunics.

Anakin might have sworn off research after it had almost made him—no, after _he_ had almost choked Obi-Wan. His desperation to avoid his son’s fate had forced him to admit that much responsibility for his own actions. But avoiding further research aside, he’d still gotten far enough to know damn well what a Force ghost was supposed to looked like.

“I apologize for the circumstances,” the Force ghost said, “as well as my provocations of you this past week. I know it’s too much to hope that you’ll believe anything I have to say about my motivations at this point, but I hope you’ll at least believe that I am no longer possessing your Master.”

Whatever Anakin had expected the entity to look like, to sound like, it wasn’t that. He’d been pretty sure that he’d been talking to the entity even without that bit of confirmation, but he’d just assumed that it had been purposely imitating Obi-Wan. But here it apparently was, no longer pretending, and it still sounded exactly the same. Well, the voice was a bit different, older and more ragged, and the accent actually sounded a bit more like the Rim, but the way he spoke…

Was it mocking him?

Maybe-actually-Obi-Wan apparently was, judging by the eye roll he was clearly suppressing.

“I know this is a lot to swallow,” probably-Obi-Wan said, “but I am in control of my body at present—as I was indeed not any of the times we were talking these past few days. And this…This is, as I recently discovered, the ghost of my future self.”

That startled Anakin into looking at the body of his Master. “ _What_.”

\---

“Is it horrible of me to want to make this hard for him?” Luke asked, staring down at the folded hands in his lap.

“What, the explanation?” Mara asked, looking up at him. “No. It’s understandable. Human, even.”

Luke huffed.

“Careful,” Mara said, completely deadpan, “wouldn’t want to let on that the vaunted Master Skywalker isn’t completely above it all.”

That managed to get a brief chuckle. The tension slipped from Luke’s shoulders. “Wouldn’t want that,” he muttered, but this time it was lighter.

Mara reached over and put one of her hands on top of his. “It’s completely understandable. It’ll make things harder for us if you do, but so what? I’ll even help you shock your dear father as badly as you want.” She smiled, expression warm and gentle for what felt like the first time in years.

Luke sat for a minute, evidently entertaining fantasies of how much temporary havoc they could wreak on Anakin Skywalker’s psyche, before smiling himself. “Thanks for the offer, Mara. Even though you knew I wouldn’t take it.”

“I can’t help that you’re too good of a person for this whole revenge thing, Farmboy. We balance each other out like that.”

Luke slid over to her side and leaned into her as she draped a protective arm over his shoulders. “Let’s just sit like this for a minute,” he murmured. “Just for a bit. Then I’ll talk to my father.”

\---

Luke ducked his gaze a bit. “So. You remember how I said I was married?”

Anakin felt a sudden wave of foreboding. “…Yes.”

“So first I just want to repeat that Mara Jade—you know, Darth Vexion—is totally not evil or a Sith, and she was totally undercover with me, and she didn’t do anything to me that I didn’t agree to.” At least Luke was meeting his eyes again.

But there was no possible situation where that was an okay disclaimer in a conversation about Luke’s wife. Anakin narrowed his eyes. “Uh huh.”

“ _So_ ,” Luke said, “you should probably know that I’ve been married to Mara for almost a year now.”

“ _What_.”

\---

“I liked it better when I thought you had some fictional wife that you tragically might never see again,” Anakin grumbled many minutes later, but Luke thought he might finally be coming around to the idea.

Maybe.

“I’m sorry, Father.” Luke decided it would be prudent to conceal the smile tugging at his lips.

“You know what? _My_ wife never spent weeks pretending to torture me, and then days longer gloating about it!”

Hopefully Anakin wouldn’t say that to Mara’s face—Luke knew she already felt guilty enough.

Searching for a response, Luke stamped down on the impulse to make a flippant comment about Anakin and Padmé missing out. “It really wasn’t that long. And again, she didn’t do anything I didn’t agree to—”

“And don’t even get me started on how creepy you were with her! What was all that groveling and ‘My Master’ shit?”

_You’re one to talk_ , Luke carefully did not say.

\---

“But _Jade_? **_Jade_**?”

Luke sighed. “Yes, Father.”

\---

“So how much of what you told me was even true?”

“Most of it. Pretty much everything that didn’t involve Mara and I being Sith and wanting to bring back the Empire.”

“So she wasn’t the Emperor’s personal spy and didn’t ever try to assassinate you?” That, at least, would make Anakin feel the slightest bit better about all this.

“Actually,” Luke said, and Anakin was hit with his tenth wave of foreboding in one conversation, “that part was unfortunately true.”

“ ** _What?_** ”

“It was a long time ago,” Luke said. “And as for her allegiance, the Emperor kidnapped her when she was two years old. He raised her. But she changed her allegiances. We did have difficulties at first, but we reconciled that years ago.”

“Yeah,” Anakin sneered, “well in this time, we don’t generally forgive people who hunted us down and tried to kill us.”

Luke’s expression creased. But all he said was, “People can change.”

“And that’s another thing! If she was running around killing people for a Sith Lord, how do you know that she _isn’t_ secretly a Darksider? The whole you can turn back from the Dark Side thing was a nice lie to explain all the times you weren’t acting super evil, but—”

“Father,” Luke interrupted, voice gentle but firm, “Mara doesn’t use the Dark Side. She never has. And I know this isn’t a great situation, but she is my wife. I love her, and I’m afraid you’re going to have to accept that.” Luke paused, and his expression became even more complicated. “Besides, she wasn’t lying. People really can come back from the Dark Side.”

“What, so the Emperor really had his _Sith Apprentice_ turn back to the Light after _twenty years_ of slaughtering people? You expect me to _believe_ that?”

“The Jedi know much about the Force,” Luke said slowly, “and certainly more than the Jedi Order of my time. But that doesn’t mean they know everything.”

Before Anakin could protest again, Luke continued. “Father. You’ll have to ask Ben for the details, but…there’s something you need to know.”

“Yeah?” Anakin asked, wary. Sure, the fact that his son apparently wasn’t a Sith and that Obi-Wan apparently hadn’t been kidnapped against his will, all of that was technically good news. But none of the conversations he’d had since waking up on the ship had been fun, either.

“This is not going to be fun to hear,” Luke started, dragging out the words in visible reluctance. But he kept going. “But it’s funny you mention the Emperor’s Apprentice. Because his Apprentice…it was you.”

\---

“So…Mara Jade _is_ your real name, right?”

Mara’s expression was amused, but unlike the previous handful of times Ahsoka had seen her, it was also gentle. She put her cup of caff down on the galley counter and answered. “Yes, it is. And I hear we have you to thank for Ben and Obi-Wan getting us out.”

“Yeah, well.” Ahsoka stared at the table where she was sitting. That was…a thing she’d done. In defiance of the whole Jedi Order. “I’m sure he would have managed without me.”

“Well, thank you nonetheless.” Mara smiled as she leaned back against the counter herself, apparently not wanting to come sit down at the table. It was pretty obvious she was keeping her distance out of deference to Ahsoka.

And honestly, something in Ahsoka _really_ appreciated the courtesy. Intellectually, Ahsoka knew that Mara’s cold, calculated, graphic descriptions of how she’d torture Jedi Padawans into insanity and evil were fake. But the memory of hearing Mara give them still chilled her inside.

But Mara was, apparently, a Jedi. And a good person. Ahsoka shouldn’t _need_ the courtesy. She took that determination and used it to steel herself. “You should get over here and tell me exactly how you sabotaged those Force binders.”

Hey, it would be a useful skill.

Mara raised her eyebrows, but nodded. “I can do you one better than that,” she said. “I grabbed our before we escaped, just in case. I can show you how to do it yourself.”

Now that…that was a deal Ahsoka could accept. She smiled, knowing it showed her fangs. “Perfect.”

\---

“What do you mean, the Apprentice was me?” Anakin asked. Distantly, he registered that his voice came out low and flat.

That was not what he’d expected Luke to say he needed to know.

“What it sounds like,” Luke said, sounding sympathetic but way too unaffected. “I’m going to let Ben explain it, though. I don’t know much of what happened.”

“Why not?” Anakin bit out. “You seem to know everything else.”

He hadn’t really expected an answer, or at least not a calm, non-sarcastic one. But looked managed anyway. “It was painful for Ben to talk about, and unfortunately no one else involved was coming back as a Force ghost, or at least not for long. I got the broad strokes, and beyond that, I knew what I needed to know.”

So Anakin’s son, who had very effectively pretended to be a Sith for a week, who had married a Sith Lord’s personal assassin, was still a better Jedi than Anakin. Fine.

“And you were fine with just _not knowing_?” Anakin snapped. _You cared about me that little,_ he didn’t.

Luke smiled at him sadly. “The few times I saw you after you died, you didn’t want to talk about it. We spent our time on other things,” he said, like talking to the dead was something he just _did_.

Then again, “Ben” had floated into the corner of the room sometime while Anakin was snapping at Luke, so maybe it was.

Snapping at Luke. Fuck. He’d told himself that he wasn’t going to do this, that he’d manage his emotions around Luke, that he’d manage his motions in general. That he’d stop acting on his anger, find a way to smother it down under proper Jedi serenity until it disappeared completely. He had to do that, he had to, he’d known that since he…

Oh, Force. Since he’d nearly killed Obi-Wan _twice_ over.

He’d—he had—Force, even the thought of a world without Obi-Wan in it was intolerable, for all their sometimes rough relationship, but that it would be at his hands, Obi-Wan cut off from the Force, powerless to stop him—

Anakin’s throat tightened so suddenly and completely that he almost thought he’d begun choking himself.

He looked up at the form of the eerie, blue-tinted, impossibly old Obi-Wan waiting patiently in the corner. With no Force-suppressing cell between the, no physical body to be confused by, no Anakin on the verge of making one of the worst mistakes of his life, his Master’s presence was clear. “Master,” Anakin said, fighting through the ache in his throat. “Who killed you?”

Obi-Wan was one of the best duelists in the Order. He was one of the most powerful Jedi in the Order. There were very, very few beings that could beat him in a fight.

Anakin was also one of the best duelists in the Order, if not quite as good as Obi-Wan. But he _was_ the most powerful Jedi, bar none.

The look the ghost of his Master gave him was somehow both peaceful and pained. It was one of the only times that Anakin had ever seen pain, true pain, not annoyance or mere distaste, on Obi-Wan’s face. “Perhaps we should focus on other parts of the story first,” the ghost said.

_Oh, Force._

Anakin turned and ran.

\---

Anakin wasn’t quite sure where he was or how he’d gotten there. Well, no, he knew where he was, but only from his long attention to starship schematics. He was in the access crawlspace for the hyperdrive. Obvious, if Obi-Wan or Ahsoka thought to look for him, but he’d panicked, had only vague memories of running through the ship, of veering away from the Force signatures of his vital, strong, _living_ Master in the cockpit and Ahsoka and Jade in the galley.

Anakin didn’t think he had the energy to try and find somewhere else.

But maybe it would be okay. Why would anyone come looking for him, if they knew that? Why hadn’t they shoved him out an airlock as soon as they’d gotten him unconscious?

They’d gassed him on purpose. Ahsoka had, too, had already had a gas mask—Anakin flashed on Ahsoka yelling, alerting him to the escape—

Oh, Force. She probably knew too. It wasn’t enough for his Master— _two versions_ of his Master—to hate him, or his son, or his son’s insane wife. No, he’d just lost his Padawan, too. One of the only good, pure things in his life, and he’d lost it. Without them, what did he even have? His men, and Padmé. Nothing else.

And they’d hate him too, as soon as they found out.

So he had nothing.

Anakin curled in tighter around himself, clenched his fist tighter around the exposed piping, careless of the dust and grease he was getting all over his hands, his clothes.

Jedi tunics. Fuck, he should burn them. Wasn’t worthy of them, might as well up and join the Separatists like the rest of the Sith—which he apparently _would_ , help destroy the Republic, Padmé’s Republic, and found an Empire…

He wanted to vomit. But he’d wanted to vomit a lot since the start of the war, and it would be impossible to clean the bile completely out of the intricate hyperdrive wiring in front of him. So he didn’t.

But tears, he wouldn’t have to clean out of anything but his damnable tunics, already filthy with everything that could be found in an engine. And Anakin had mastered the art of silent crying years ago, when he was just a little slave boy on Tatooine.

So, despite himself, despite almost everything he’d ever had hammered into his head about emotions and Jedi serenity, he cried.

\---

By the time someone else came to find him—Anakin was still almost surprised they had bothered—his tears had dried up. He had no idea how long it had been, but it felt like awhile. At least an hour. They were still in hyperspace, he could tell from the thrums and whirs of the drive all around him, but that was all he knew.

Out of everyone who could have come to find him, the ghost of his Master was definitely the last one Anakin had expected. He’d killed Obi-Wan. Force, no wonder _the entity_ had been egging him on, that sheer betrayal was enough to make even Obi-Wan angry. Why would he ever want to see Anakin again?

But apparently he somehow did, because he blinked into Anakin’s crawlspace between one breath and the next, his otherworldly glow faintly illuminating the metal and plastoid around them.

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan said, and Anakin’s brain stuttered to a stop. _He_ was sorry? Anakin had— “It was rather naïve of me to think that my statement wouldn’t have been an answer in itself.”

“ _You’re sorry_? **_You’re_** _sorry_?” Anakin barely managed to voice his voice down to a discrete volume. “Force, Obi-Wan, _I killed you_. Why the _fuck_ are _you_ sorry?”

Obi-Wan blinked. His eyes looked even bluer post-mortem, the shade deepened by the blue tint of the rest of him. “I just told you why,” he said, but it was calm and gentle rather than biting. “Anakin, I will admit I am both gratified and deeply relieved that you are still so horrified at the thought of killing me. The fact that there is a future wherein you might is definitely something you will need to think and meditate on at length. But you have not yet done anything. And although we did come back in time on accident, Luke and Mara and I are here to make sure you never do.”

That sounded far, far too good to be true. And besides… “But I did do something,” Anakin said, not sure if he wanted to scream or cry, at Obi-Wan or at himself. “I tried to kill you earlier, in that cell. Even knowing I would have killed Obi-Wan along with you.”

Obi-Wan’s look was wry. But it also, astonishingly, contained a smile. “And I am far from thrilled about that. I did not realize that you would go so far, even with me provoking you. But I did know you would try to Force choke me. And I also know that you didn’t kill me, or my younger self. And honestly? I don’t think you would have.”

Anakin snorted. “Your faith in me is touching.”

“But even after everything, not wholly undeserved.”

But it was. Anakin had killed his Master. He had become a Sith.

And all of that might have been in the future…but he could just barely force himself to admit that there was one massacre that wasn’t.

But he couldn’t admit that out loud. Not to Obi-Wan. Not in the face of something that resembled forgiveness.

Besides, this Obi-Wan was from the future. A future where he’d been a Sith Lord. So maybe he knew. And if he didn’t, well, Anakin had been a Sith, surely he’d done worse things, and Obi-Wan was forgiving him anyway…

He should tell Obi-Wan. He knew that. But…later.

Later.

“Listen, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said. “Yes, you did many horrible things in the future I’m from. But now you have a chance to never do them, to make sure Darth Sidious is defeated before he has a chance to bring his plans to fruition. And you may be afraid, and you may think it’s impossible. I understand why you would. But it’s not impossible, for us to stop Sidious or for you to avoid Falling. Even in the future, even after twenty years of Darkness, you still managed to Turn back to the Light.”

Anakin’s head shot up. He—he hadn’t let himself think about that, about whether he was doomed to Fall, about what this meant for him. But if that was true—and Jade had said it was, too—

The tension seeped out of him so completely that he felt dizzy, even sitting down, hunched over on the floor, his side pressed against the piping of the ship.

“You don’t hate me?” He forced out, and failed to keep his voice from trembling.

“No, Anakin,” Obi-Wan said with a smile. “Even after everything, I never completely could. Anakin, you’re my brother, and I love you.”

Anakin’s mouth had ceased to function.

“It’s something I should have told you, I know. I never said it until it’s too late. But it’s true of me, and it’s true of my younger self as well.”

It was everything Anakin had ever wanted to hear. He didn’t know what it meant, that he was getting it from the Obi-Wan who knew what he’d done, or that he’d had to hear it from his Master’s ghost, but it was something.

“He’s—he doesn’t hate me?”

“No, Anakin. He’s upset and unnerved, yes. But I told him what happened, and how. And I promise you, he is more afraid for you than of you.”

There was no way this was real. There was no way Anakin was this lucky. “Luke?” he asked, voice even quieter.

“Luke has known for over a decade. But he doesn’t hate you. He’s the one who always had faith in you, even when I was blinded by the Jedi teachings on the Dark Side. He’s the reason you returned to the Light. And he wants to save you more than almost anything.”

Force, his son really was a miracle. “And…and Ahsoka?”

“Ahsoka doesn’t know. She…well, as you probably noticed, she was in on the escape and your kidnapping, but we didn’t tell her about…that. She’ll likely have a hard time, but she’ll also likely forgive you. In the future, she survived the Purges, and even when she found out what you’d become, she was still willing to do so.”

Anakin hadn’t done anything to deserve this. Especially not given what he was truly capable of. But he’d make himself worthy of the chance. He would.

\---

When Anakin arrived at the galley, he was still in his greasy, engine-smeared tunics. After all, as the older Obi-Wan—“Ben,” he’d insisted for the sake of clarity—had explained, they hadn’t exactly had an easy way to grab a change of clothes. At least the dark of his tunics hid some of the stains, he told himself, forcing himself to stand confidently as Ben floated in behind him.

Everyone was sitting around the table, Ahsoka and Jade chatting over…a pair of dissected Force binders, and Obi-Wan and Luke a surprisingly well-matched pair at the other end of the bench, sipping a tea with a heady smell. Anakin, to his distant shock, recognized it as one of the only good things on all of Tatooine.

“So,” he said, “good news. I’m now an accomplice in my own kidnapping.”

Luke was the first one to react, breaking out into a wide smile. It was a sweet smile, unlike so many of the others Anakin had seen over the past eight days. “I’m so glad you’re with us, Father.”

Huh. So Obi-Wan—Ben—hadn’t been lying about that. Or…wrong. Anakin wasn’t sure _how_ he hadn’t been wrong, but he’d settle for being thankful, and trying to enjoy the still weird but still amazing feeling of being called _father_ by his son.

Which reminded him… “On one condition: I need to call Padmé.”

Anakin braced himself for arguments. There were none.

Though Obi-Wan— _his_ Obi-Wan—might have twitched an eyebrow before he answered. “Of course you do, Anakin, although please do impress upon her the need for secrecy. After all, it wouldn’t do to panic your wife unnecessarily.

Well, that was—that—

He reared on Ben. Slowly and at a reasonable tone of voice. “You _told_ him.”

Both Obi-Wans rolled their eyes in unison. “Give me some credit, Anakin,” his Obi-Wan said. “I’ve known you since you were nine. I’ve known for over a year.”

“Yeah, Master,” Ahsoka drawled, “you’re really not subtle.” So apparently Snips knew too, that was a thing, but the effect of her mockery was kind of ruined by the fact that immediately after her comment, she surged forward, wrapped him in a huge hug, and buried her face in his chest.

She looked up after a second to meet his eyes. “Sorry about the knockout gas,” she said, not nearly as sheepish as she should be.

But Anakin just sighed. Apparently no one hated him, despite everything, and if that was the case, he could hardly complain. “Don’t worry about it, Snips,” he smiled and tightened his arms around her. “I’ll just make you do some extra meditation handstands and we’re even.”

Luke and Vexion—probably he should call her Mara, if she was not evil and also married to his son—both chuckled at that. “So that is real,” Luke said idly. “I kind of thought Yoda was messing with me.”

Anakin didn’t have any idea what to do with that comment, so he ignored it.

“So,” he said instead. “I hear we have a Sith to stop, a war to end, and probably some time travelers to return to the future. What’s up first?”

Luke’s smile, across the table, matched his. Mara, at his side, wore a terrifyingly calculating version of the same expression. But Luke was the one who spoke, leaning forward as he did so:

“I’m so glad you asked.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably some of you were hoping for something a little more conclusive than this from the ending lol. Just be glad I did decide to write a sequel, because this? Has always been the intended end of this fic. I'm a really big fan of hopeful, open endings, and the possibilities they allow for, and for a long time, I didn't really know what happened after this, besides that things didn't end in tragedy. But eventually I started to figure it out.
> 
> As for the sequel...except it sometime in eight months to a year, probably. As with this fic, I'm going to write it all at once and then start posting. So a longer wait, but if you see it posted, you'll know it's already finished. If you haven't yet, try checking out the two snippets in this series to tide you over.
> 
> And again, thanks to all of you who came on this ride with me. I hope you'll agree it was a good one.


End file.
